


Californian Son

by LivTC



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drug Use, Humanstuck, M/M, Marijuana, NFSW, Porn With Plot, They fight a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-13
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 09:10:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4429592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LivTC/pseuds/LivTC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Come on, Vantas,” he scoffs. “Did you really think we were gonna be best friends forever? That in our old age, we’d wheel ourselves out into the goddamn sunset, away from our decrepit nursing home, oxygen tanks following behind, as our shitty toupees lifted in the wind?”</p>
<p>“It’s less that,” you say, and you can’t tell if you’re on the verge of tears or very destructive anger, “and more that I just didn’t expect you to be such a raging, veiny dick about seeing me.”</p>
<p>Strider gestures with one of his hands as he says, “Here we are.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It's not right

For as beautiful as part of you might find this, you can’t help but be in a really, really bad mood about the whole thing. The pink and blue horizon isn’t inching any closer as you speed down the mostly empty road, ducking into valleys and only ever briefly hiding from the setting Californian sun, only to come back up again. With your hair was whipping around your face, occasionally getting around your borrowed sunglasses (“You didn’t bring any fucking shades to California?”) and into your eyes, you can’t get yourself to relax. For what must be the seventh or eighth time, you note that while you and Strider have always been at odds to some end, this is different.

As you come out of the shade, sunlight once again bathing the convertible, you take in a deep, somewhat annoyed breath. You attempt to force this new air to settle your nerves and agitations, and for just a moment, it works. You feel calmer as you look out the passenger side, a fraction of your anxiety and anger slipping, only to be immediately replaced.

“So whatcha think, Karkat?” a loud voice says in you left ear, competing with the godawful wind.

“Fuck, dude!” you yell back in surprise, whipping around in your seat, ready to leap into the back and deliver some serious pain in the form of a very well-placed black eye.

“Hey,” a deeper and apathetic voice calls from the driver’s seat. “I’ll turn this car around.”

With one last snarl, you spin back, seething. You can hear the assmunch giggling in delight behind you. “Shut up,” you snap back, though with less force, losing your words in the wind.

Oh yes, this is different. The ugly convertible is new of course, as is the dipshit in the backseat, but based only on the tense silence hanging around the front of the car, you know it’s something else.

With no warning, the fucker is back in your ear, hands on the shoulders of your seat, his head next to yours. Aggravation and the desire to shove this idiot off of you bubbles, but you resist it, not wanting to get scolded like a fucking child again.

He asks you, “Hey, what was Dave’s old car like?”

“It was an ugly ass sedan,” you grit out, half-hoping he’ll fight you back. “He had fuzzy dice and the worst license plate holder I’ve ever seen.”

Instead, you briefly look over to see Strider shrugging, fingers lightly tapping on his steering wheel to whatever posh-ass pop song is humming on. You notice it’s nothing like the near-destruction he used to cause in the sedan, and you’re not sure if it’s because this car is more delicate, or if he’s just trying to be cool, calm, and collected. Either way, it’s very, very annoying.

“What was it?”

“It said ‘Do You Follow Jesus This Close?’ in comic sans, but we painted over ‘Jesus’ and replaced it with ‘Kasich,’” you near-groan. “I pointed it out at a thrift store and immediately regretted it.”

"Oh!” the idiot says, still invading your space. “He still has that!”

You can’t help yourself from looking over to Strider with a grimace that resembles confusion.

He shrugs again. “It’s comedy gold, dude. And it was your idea, shitstain.”

“It’s stupid, especially outside of Ohio.”

“Aw, really?” he says back with a little bit of bite. “’Cause I’m liking it even more here.”

You don’t respond immediately and the tension that had been picked up with you and your backpack at the airport feels full-force. You fold your arms over your chest and look to your right, over to a passing beach beneath you. You’ve only just arrived, but you’re sure there’s no other place as quintessentially California as this. Despite the growing darkness, you watch the people still on the beach, very few of whom are actually touching the water. They look like ants.

The idiot (you can’t remember his name, but even if you could, this moniker feels fine) has his arms now totally wrapped around the head of your seat, and likely noticing your gaze, he asks, “You like the beach?”

You know he’s talking to you, and you’re disgusted by his closeness, but you find yourself looking to the driver and practically spitting, “Did it have to be red, Strider?”

“They car?” he clarifies, not taking his eyes off the road. Or, at least, that’s what you assume; he’s wearing shades, after all. “You got a problem with it?”

“It’s tacky.”

“Tacky?” John repeats loudly, mocking him. “It’s a classic!”

“Driving a red convertible around a Californian hillside overlooking a Californian beach is clichéd at best,” you tell them both.

“Hey,” Strider responds, light aggression and annoyance in his voice, “as soon as you think of something you'd rather be doing, you let me know.”

You turn back, arms still tight over your chest. You can think of quite a few things you’d rather be doing.

Only a few seconds of silence pass before the idiot asks, “So how d'you guys know each other, again?”

“We were neighbors,” Strider says, rolling his shoulders (left bare by his tank top) back. You can tell he’s not as thin and lanky as he had been just a few months ago; you wonder what incentivized him to beef up. “Has the neighborhood fallen to shit yet, Vantas?”

“You wish,” you snap, rolling your eyes. “It's not like you ever left your damn house, anyway. The only thing different is the asshole that moved in.”

“Wait,” the idiot says, smile apparent in his voice; you’re still doing your best to avoid looking at him, “are you telling me Dave wasn't always Mr. Cool McGuy?”

“Of course I was,” he says, ‘casually’ shaking his blonde hair away from his sunglasses, as if to display his ever-existing coolness.

You scoff, eyes looking to perfectly clean dashboard; his old car's had apple juice bottles and boxes covering it, which would often fall into the passenger's seat, or worse, lap. “Yeah, okay.”

The idiot manages to move even closer to the front. “Seriously?!” he laughs, falling backwards before springing right back up in elation. “Oh, that's awesome! What was he like?”

You glance to Strider and find him tense. A petty part of you pulls at the corner of your mouth and you turn to meet the idiot’s blue eyes. You tell him as monotonously as you can, like you’re just stating facts, “Total loner. He had maybe four or five friends, and he didn't date until he was sixteen, and even then, it was just Terezi—”

“Terezi?!” John exclaimed, jumping a bit, far too enthusiastic, “I've heard about her! He's still got a thing for her!”

Strider sighed deeply, “No.”

You’re not sure how to feel about that, but you don’t get a chance to figure it out.

He continues, “Terezi’s cool. How is she doing, Vantas?”

You find yourself shrugging as the car falls into another valley, now past the beach and once again covered by shade. “She’s just Terezi. I think she has a new thing with Gamzee. I haven't seen either for a few weeks.”

Strider's face twists under his glasses. “Gamzee?”

“Isn’t he the clown?” the idiot asks.

“Juggalo, yeah,” you correct, as if it really fucking matters. You mentally punch yourself. “They started hanging out a lot a month after you left, and guess who’s no longer invited to their bullshit movie nights?”

“You have a pretty shit attitude for a movie club, anyway,” Strider notes, moving a finger to turn up the music, just a number or two, but nothing to make a real difference. “Sure you weren't just kicked out?”

“No, because, apparently, I'm also a pretty shit third wheel,” he said, glancing at the idiot. He seems oblivious. This is not surprising.

“Are you guys come to me and Jade's party?” the idiot asks, apparently bored with the talk of Ohio.

You groan, banging the back of your head against the black leather of the seat, and also, the idiot's arm, “Oh, god, no. No parties.”

“What?!” the idiot whines, moving his appendage out of the way, if only reflexively. “No parties?!”

You think Strider is rolling his eyes, but you can’t tell for sure. “Yes, parties. I already promised Jade we'd go.”

“Strider, I just got off a plane, and—” you complain.

The idiot jumps in, both verbally and physically (he just can't seem to get close enough), “It'll be fun! You can meet all of Dave's new friends!”

Your entire face falls into utter annoyance. Friends? Strider’s been here all of six months, and despite the fact that he used to be the kind of fucker who hadn’t left his house in twenty years, he has _multiple_ _friends_? Bullshit. Complete nonsense.

“You'd like Jade,” he tells you, and you can’t tell if he’s bullshitting you or not.

You gnaw at your lip, looking off your shoulder again and to the sunset; the sun is gone now, but there’s still a little light. For as much as you really, really don't want to go, and for as much as you hate parties populated by strangers, you sort of do want to meet these “friends;” they likely don't know about the Smuppets, or the swords in the old fridge, so you’ve got a lot to catch them up on.

“When does it start?” you groan.

The idiot leans back and pulls out his phone, likely checking for the time. You wonder briefly if he even knows that the car has as clock that clearly states it’s 8:17.

“About fifteen minutes ago!” the idiot declares proudly, like he'd braved the wilderness to get the answer. “Fashionably late.”

"Can I at least drop my stuff off?” you beg, stalling, telling yourself it’s because you don’t want to go and not because you really want to see the rest of the stupid sunset.


	2. but it's now

The trip to the Striders’ giant ass fucking mansion is relatively quick; Strider parks the car, you listen to John (you learned his name somewhere around the way) whine about wanting to keep his lazy ass in the car, Strider convinces John to leave the car, you go to the giant front door of the giant house, give your singular bag to the strange and awkward butler, and then leave. You find yourself annoyed that you didn't even get to wipe your feet on what you imagined to be a very expensive doormat.

The trip to Jade's house is equally as fast. Apparently, she lives in the same gated community as the Striders, but it doesn’t feel like it for how amazingly far away from each other all of the houses are. You could fit a small galaxy into everyone's lawn and none of the property owner's would even notice.   

Jade's house is just as glamorous as Strider’s, as well—at least from the outside, as that’s all you’ve seen of either. The columns on the porch are taller than your own house back on Ohio, and the building reaches three floors in some areas, and likely four in places you can’t see. Dormers frequently pop out of the roof, but likely for style rather than space. You note that most of the houses are neutral colors, and textured—like that stuff you think is Mexican but aren’t cultured enough to be sure about. Stucco, you think?

Either way, these big, luxurious houses, with their expansive, sprawling lawns, look nothing like the one-story, blue, rundown shack Strider grew up in, and that fills you with a bit of jealous anger. You really need some pot; that always mellows you out.

Gamzee isn't the best role model. Or the best anything, really.

Before you know it, the two other men are out of the car, feet crossing the overdone stone walkway. You try to stay close, but Strider and John have much longer legs and apparently no desire to let you keep up. Eventually, the three of you land squarely in front of a behemoth of a door that looks down you like a cyclops, eye of a knocker, about to consume you whole. You’re prepared for John to ring the doorbell when he reaches his hand out, but he just fucking opens the door, revealing the insides of the monster.

The falling darkness outside amplifies the flashing bright lights, likely coming from a fancy lighting rig-thing, only to shine down on a bunch of barely-of-age kids who are very clearly drunk as absolute fuck. Even from outside, you can smell pizza mixed with sweat mixed with sex, and you wonder for a moment if the sweet, bright-eyed girl you’ve been told owns the place has any idea what’s going on.

Strider walks in without hesitating, and for the first time, you notice he’s still wearing his shades. You hadn’t questioned it in the car—you figured he was just using them as goggles or some shit to protect against his hair and the wind, but seeing him walk into a dark house with them on just adds to your rage. What a douchebag.

“Come on, Karkat,” John offers, stepping inside and smiling over his shoulder. You glare in return but do as the black-haired doofus says, silently praying that you won’t get felt up by any drunk party-goers as you cross. Your feet hit the dark wooden floors as John, unimpressed with your speed, reaches behind himself and grabs your wrist, pulling you straight into the crowd that’s gathered in what you assume to be a living room. The lights pulse above you, and you look up to see that they’re coming from not one, but three small, tacky disco balls that have been duct taped to the walls. You’d imagined that these rich fucks would’ve had a bigger budget.

On your way to wherever the fuck John is trying to lead you, he manages to dodge every drunk, sweaty dancer, but you’re not as lucky. Both men and women rub up against you, most accidentally but at least three or four on purpose, all laughing but not excusing themselves, like fucking classless buffoons, not the prissy little country club members you’d expected them to be. You notice, in fact, that you haven’t seen a single sweater vest, nor something as simple as a nice button-up. Everyone’s wearing greasy tank tops and too-short shorts—you, a man who wears clothes three sizes too large, has a better fashion sense than them. Kanaya will be disappointed, but probably intrigued, by this fashion report.

“Why the fuck is everyone dressed like that?” you ask John as soon as he’s stopped you in an empty and vast kitchen. You feel wet. You gag.

“What do you mean?” he asks, dressed in a blue shirt and ugly cargo shorts, himself.

“Like,” you start, nearly about to double over and dry heave. “Like poor people?”

John’s face contorts into a confused, almost condescending smile as he backs up to the kitchen island, which have fancy white marble countertops. “What did you expect?”

You shrug, taking deep breaths, happy to be out of that cesspit but still recovering, and take in your surroundings. Jade obviously has a personal chef; all the appliances look too fancy for just the casual cook. You wonder for a moment if she even lives with anyone.

“Gucci shit, or something, I guess. That’s a brand right?” you ask, second-guessing yourself.

John nods, but he still looks confused and condescending. “I mean, there’s no reason for them to prove they have money. They know. The people that do wear that fancy shit to parties—they’re only _pretending_ to have money.”

You process that, realizing that you know nothing outside of tabloids about the lives of the rich and famous, and take a step or two over the tiled floor, looking for something to lean up against. Nothing looks particularly fragile, but you’re intimidated by the sheer fanciness. Surely everything around you is worth more than your life.

You finally ask, with a bit of bite, “Is that why you smell like you've been wearing the same shirt for three days?”

“Totally,” John snorts, stretching his legs out. You settle against a counter near John's feet—John's shoes seem to be rattier and older than your own, and you’ve has this particular pair of black Converse since you were a high school freshman. “So what's it like in Ohio?”

You shrug, growling to yourself. “Boring. It’s Ohio. We’ve got corn fields and cheese barns.” You add, bitterly, “It’s nothing like California.”

John looks to the ceiling thoughtfully, scrunching up his nose repeatedly to move his glasses. “I don't know. Dave talks about it a lot.”

“It's probably the only thing he _has_ to talk about,” you note, before taking a second to cringe at the very idea of holding an actual conversation with John. “He lived there his entire life. Where’d he go, anyway?”

“Oh,” John nods. “Yeah, he always disappears at parties. Usually gets lost in the crowd. He likes to dance, y'know?”

“He dances?” you asked, incredulous. You swear you feel the bags under your eyes grow.

“Yeah!” John's eyes light up. “I mean, he just kinda sways like he doesn't really give a fuck, but he usually ends up with some chick to bring home, so I guess it works.”

Mad at Strider for leaving you alone in a strange place, on the one day you could fly into see him, and only to pick up some girls, you consider telling John that Strider absolutely can't dance for shit. You think about telling him the story of July 2013's movie night—the one where Dave got so high he actually gave in to the Terezi and Gamzee's dares and danced for his three friends, looking more like an elderly stripper who was experiencing a mild-to-severe seizure rather than whatever the fuck he'd been going for.

Instead, you say, “Chicks?”

“He's a lady's man,” John says, looking everywhere but you, it feels, before adding, “Here, at least. I know you said he was a late bloomer.”

“In every sense of the word,” you mutter, recalling a conversation you’d had shortly before Strider left, concerning Terezi; he'd still been a virgin.

John laughs, still not meeting your eye. “Yeah, I'll have to make sure to bug him about that some time.”

You nod and find yourself hoping that he does. Yeah, Strider will probably be mad at you for spilling his secret past, or whatever, but you’re already fed up with your old friend's behavior after just a few hours of being in California. You don't really care how mad Strider will get. You feel like the asshole deserves it.

“Hey,” John calls after an awkward moment of silence, “mind if I go?”

You look up and try not to let your eyes go wide. You don’t like the kid, but you don’t like being alone in unfamiliar places, either.

“I mean, I'll get Jade first,” John says hurriedly, a little distracted, looking out the doorway and to the party. You try to follow his eyes. Maybe there was a girl? “Just give me a second.”

He hops off the counter, goes through the archway, and leaves you by yourself in the large, empty kitchen, speechless and raging, as if you’re a lowly pot on a burner so hot you’re boiling over, but still not worth paying attention to.

Who the fuck do these asshole think they are? What kind of damage does it take to think leaving someone behind, not just once, but twice, is just totally cool and good? Does no one know that you’re only staying one night? Does no one know how expensive plane tickets from Ohio to California are?!

Luckily, even if it doesn’t feel like it, you don’t have to wait too long until a girl walks into the kitchen.

“Hi!” she greets, eyes as bright as can be, almost boring holes into your skull. Her hair is as dark as it was outside, with a face as round as the moon. Her threadbare sweater, black with a white geometric design, hugs her waist. She’s pretty, is what you’re getting at, even if it’s not really your usual taste. “I’m Jade, and you must be Karkat!”

“Yeah,” is as much as you mutter back, rage subsiding a bit; at least you’re not alone.

“So you’re Dave’s friend?” she asks, trying to start a conversation as she steps farther in. She leans up on the counter next to you, smiling. She has buck teeth, which you find weirdly endearing.

You cross your arms loosely. “Sort of, I guess.”

She giggles, like it’s not a big deal. “Yeah, I see he left you.”

“He’s an asshole, that’s for sure.”

“He’s not that bad,” she defends gently, lightly tapping your crossed arms with the back of one of her hands. You notice that you don’t really mind _her_ overfamiliarity. “But I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that!”

You grumble some more, looking to your feet, not sure what to say to her. Even though most of your current friends are women, you still have a difficult times interacting with them. Besides, you’ve known Terezi, Kanaya, and Rose for forever, and this girl is totally foreign.

“John promised you’d gossip with me about Dave,” she says, grinning in a way that likely would’ve looked mischievous if not for her near-childlike features. You wonder if starting a conversation with you is her personal brand of pity.

“What do you want to know?” you respond monotonously, faking boredom, or disinterest, or something, when in reality, you’re pretty eager to talk shit. Strider has clearly chosen to spend your one day here away from you, and you’re just immature enough to take revenge anyway you can get it.

“Tell me about his friends back in Ohio!” she suggests, clapping her hands in front of her, like she’s given herself the best idea. “He doesn’t talk much about them.”

You huff at that, half offended and half confused—John said it was all Strider talked about, but he’d likely lied. You answer, anyway. “He only liked four people, and one of them was his sister, so she doesn’t really—”

Jade interrupted, “Dave has a sister?”

You meet her green eyes, taken aback. You know that he hasn’t called home much, or at all, because Kanaya is very, very pissed about it, but you’re still surprised. “Yeah, they’re twins. Her name is Rose.”

Jade looks as confused as you feel. “Why doesn’t he ever talk about her? Did they have a falling out?”

You shrug, looking away from the girl, no longer sure. Kanaya hadn’t mention it if it happened, but you admit, “I have no idea. They always got along well, as far as siblings go.”

“Hmm,” she hums, pushing herself up onto the counter, swinging her legs and showing off her striped knee-socks. “I guess she’s just never come up. What’s she like?”

“Psychoanalyzing smartass,” you say. “Could kick anyone's ass at Scrabble, probably. She's marrying one of my best friends, but I’m not as close with her.”

“Dave's a smartass, too,” Jade notes. You shrug in response. You personally find Strider more annoying than clever, unlike Rose.

“Why do you need me to tell you stuff about him, anyway?” you ask. “Why can't you ask him?”

"Oh, he wouldn't tell me anything fun,” she says, shaking her head. “He's too busy trying to protect his image. He doesn't talk about himself much.”

You grunt in response, offering no more, too busy thinking. For someone that kept that stupid license plate holder, Strider sure does seem eager to leave his home behind.

“So tell me about you,” Jade prompts, with such genuine interest that it almost makes you gag. Why does she care so much when Strider can’t be bothered to?

“I don't know,” you say, not really sure how honest to be. However, especially with how comfortable she makes you feel, you know your natural loud-mouth nature is bound to come out.

“Do you have any siblings?” she prompts.

“I have an older brother,” you tell her. “We used to live together, but he’s some amazing attorney, so he moved out a month ago and gave me the house.”

“So you live by yourself?”

"Yeah, and thank fuck for that.”

In the grand scheme of things, Kankri wasn’t the worst brother in the world, but you’ve noticed in the past few weeks that not having him in your space makes him significantly more tolerable. He’s still controlling as all get out, and drops in pretty frequently, but you’re self-aware enough to know that you still rely on his paycheck for food, so you deal with it.

“I wish I had a house to myself!” Jade exclaims, and you once again find yourself eyeing the kitchen—it’s almost as big as a house. “John and Dad are out all the time, but it’s not the same, y’know?”

You put together that Jade and John are siblings, a connection you’ve been nowhere close to making. You’re a little ashamed, to be honest.

She continues, “We have this amazing greenhouse and garden space, and I love tending to it, but can you imagine what I could grow without my dad around?”

You look to her and knit your eyebrows together.

“Pot!” she exclaims, hitting your arm and laughing.

Your eyebrows unknit and raise. “You smoke?”

She nods, “Yeah! We buy from a dealer right now, but I’d love to be able to grow my own. It’s a fuller experience, y’know?”

"Fuck,” you say. “Can we smoke, then? I left the shit my friend gave me at Strider’s.”

“Yeah!” she responds, jumping down from the counter. She takes your hand and says, “We’ll go upstairs. If anyone down here smells it, it’s game over for my stash.”

You nod, heart in your throat from the physical contact. Her hands are really soft and taken care of, unlike yours, which are all sorts of bitten up. You immediately feel both the beginning of a crush and insecurity, which often go hand-in-hand for you, anyway.

Like her brother did earlier, she leads you back through the crowd, but you’re not as focused on the moving bodies around you. It’s too dark and cramped for you to really see anyone, but Jade gracefully cuts through. Soon enough, you’re back by the front door and headed upstairs. She doesn’t bother with any light switches, though you do pass a set or two, and she keeps her hand on yours, despite there now being no risk of losing you in the crowd.

She doesn’t drop her hand until you’re outside her room. From a pocket in her skirt, she produces a small key. She tells you, “I don’t want to know what would happen in here if I didn’t keep it locked.”

You’re a little taken aback that that locking an interior door with a key is an option at all, but you say nothing. She leads you into her room and immediately goes to dig through a bag on her bed. “I just bought the other day,” she explains.

You look around her bedroom. Unsurprisingly, it’s giant—big enough for a couch on the far wall. You see that she’s hung potted plants from the ceiling, along with more Christmas lights than necessary, and she has way more stuffed animals around than what’s probably appropriate for an adult. It almost rivals Terezi’s collection, you note.

“Here,” she says, turning around, a baggie, lighter, and some rolling papers in her hand. “Joints okay?”

“Perfect,” you respond, still a little awestruck. While Strider has fucked off and left you to your own devices, Jade has left her own party to smoke with your sorry ass. “Haven’t had one in a while.”

She plops down on her cloud-printed comforter and pats the space next to her. You get a few flashbacks from high school, but try not to let it show on your face as you sit down. You turn to her, putting a leg up on the mattress, so as to face her.

"What do you usually use?” she asks, crushing a nugget between her fingers. You’re a little surprised she doesn’t have a mortar and pestle for that, what with all the talk of growing her own plant.

“A shitty bong made out of hamster tubes.” You make a face, “Fuck, I don’t think I packed it with me.”

She giggles, “Well, it sounds adorable.” She starts rolling a joint on her thigh; you watch intently. “Is there anything _you_ want to know?” she asks.

“What’s he like here?” is what you manage, and you mentally slap yourself. Alone in a bedroom with a hot girl, and all you can think about is Strider.

Wait—

Jade brings the paper up to her lips and licks it, then says, “Kind of quiet?”

You scoff, which turns into a laugh. “Quiet?”

“Is that funny?” she asks, laughing at your laugh. She hands you the joint she’s rolled, and you’re impressed; she doesn’t double wrap like you do. She doesn’t need to.

“Strider couldn't keep his mouth shut even if you layered duct tape and super glue over it. He rambles like he gets paid by the Freudian slip.”

“What do you mean?” she asks, smiling. Her cheeks are full and… cute? You light the joint.

“One time he told me that he thought Terezi was hot, and then attempted to cover it up with stammers about how _all_ of our friends are hot.”

Jade barks out a laugh, eyes bright, and it’s reassuring, though also a bit frustrating. The bastard moves across the fucking country and turns into a giant, gaping asshole, but still manages to have great friends that he undoubtedly doesn’t deserve.

You pass the joint back to her and watch as she takes an impressive hit. Despite being a fairly regular user, you still cough a lot, and despite knowing that that technically makes the high come faster, you prefer the idea of being as smooth as she is.

"Yeah, he doesn’t do a lot of that,” she says, and suddenly you don’t feel as confident in your ability to read her expressions.

You ask, “How did you meet him?”

“John insisted on it when he found out who was moving in down the street,” she tells you, in between a hit, “and kept trying to show him around California. He wasn’t super into it at first, but he warmed up.”

“Yeah, I saw the National Enquirer.”

Jade laughs loudly. “They really don’t like Guy Fieri.”

“Who fucking does?” you return.

A moment passes as she passes you the joint. You let it sit between your fingers.

She asks you, “Has he always worn his sunglasses everywhere?”

You scoff, “No, Jesus Christ. That’s on you guys.”

“Huh,” she says, considering that. “I’ve only seen him without them a few times. His eyes are…” she trails off.

“They’re kinda weird,” you muse, despite never really thinking that before. You grew up knowing about his abnormal eyes, and so, to you, they never felt abnormal.

 Jade asks, changing the topic, “So how long are you here?”

“Just tonight,” you say.

She tilts her head. “And your one night in California is being spent here?”

You shrug. “Yeah, I fucking guess. I don’t really know what I thought we’d do, but no offense, it wasn’t this.”

She frowns. “I wouldn’t have even let Dave in if I knew.”

"I think this is better,” you say before taking a hit. “Besides, I think I was sent as an ambassador from everyone back home on a mission to reconnect, and that obviously didn’t work, so fuck that and fuck him.”

That earns you the smallest smile. “Yeah, fuck him.” She pauses, then says, “Well, that’s good, I guess. When do you leave tomorrow?”

You groan. “Noon. I don’t even get up until noon most days.”

She’s about to say something when the door opens.

Strider is there, arm around the waist of some petite girl. They both seem more sober than you would’ve imagined, but the girl’s eyes have gone a bit wide. More moments than comfortable pass, and you feel a fire itching inside your ribcage.

“I mean, you could share,” Strider says, the first one to break the silence. The girl retracts her hand from its place on his chest.

You’re about to yell something back, but Jade beats you to it. “Were you going to fuck her in here?!”

The girl backs away from Strider and says, “Some other time?”

Strider reaffixes his attention on Jade and says, “In my defense, I didn’t know you were in here.”

Your face contorts. “Do you honestly believe that’s a good defense?”

Jade cuts in, voice still raised, “Why the fuck are you even here, Dave?”

He gestures to nothing, “I mean, you hit the nail right on the head, so—“

“Believe me,” she says, forceful, “we’re gonna talk about that, but why are you here at all if this is Karkat’s only night in town?”

“Oh,” Strider says, disinterested. “I had plans, dude.”

“Oh, fuck you,” you say. “You’ve known I was coming for a month, shitstain.”

Jade is standing now. “You shouldn’t abandon people like that, Dave.”

"Really? You seemed pretty cool with it up until right now.”

She throws her hands into the air, exasperated. “Well, yeah! I wanted to meet him, but I didn’t know it was his only night here!”

“No one’s ever gone to hell for not being hospitable.”

Recalling your rather religious upbringing, you’re pretty ready to fight back on that, but before you can, Jade’s turned back towards you. She’s digging in her bag again, rearranging things. You notice Strider is just staring silently as she does this. You’re pretty sure he’s looking at her ass, and you glare at him.

"Here,” she says, turning back and handing you a stack of rolling papers. “I have a feeling you’re gonna need this to get through your night.”

In return, you hand back the joint she’s already rolled. As she looks back to Strider, she takes a long hit.

“We’ll talk about this on Monday,” she says, “but for now, go home. And take Karkat.”

He’s not happy, but he doesn’t fight. Strider nods in your direction and disappears from the door frame.

You stand up a little awkwardly.

"I’m sorry,” Jade sighs. “I’m sure that’s not exactly what you want to do here, but,” she says, pausing. “But I hadn’t heard of you before this week, and I feel like you probably have a lot of stuff to talk about with him.”

“Thanks for the papers,” is what you say back. You leave her room, and while you are grateful to her for that and for forcing Strider to pay attention to you, you’re pretty sure you would’ve preferred to stay with her.


	3. or never

The ride back isn’t exactly what you’d call comfortable, but it doesn’t last long, either. Before you know it, you’re in the foyer of the Striders’ house, and you stop breathing.

  
You’d gotten a glimpse of the grand foyer when you'd dropped off your backpack before the party, hours ago, but seeing it from the inside, with time to let your eyes explore and wander, the first thing you notice is its sheer fucking size. It’s surprisingly different from Jade's house—rather than an unassuming staircase that runs down a hallway, disappearing into the second floor, the Strider's have an almost octagonal, if not circular entrance hall that’s three stories tall, with a spiral staircase hugging the wall and climbing all the way up. A giant crystal chandelier hangs from the tall ceiling, reflecting its own light onto the walls of the top floor.

You feel out-of-place as you kick off your ratty shoes onto the (as predicted) expensive doormat. This isn’t a place you belong; it’s in no way familiar. Nothing you know about Strider, or Bro, for that matter, is reflected in this house. The walls are a trendy shade of fucking grey, for fuck’s sake, and there’s no sign of obsessive irony in sight. You find that you’re actually disappointed by the lack of an ornate vase on a pedestal, a flagrant and grandiose misuse of money, waiting to be knocked over by a poor and androgynous high school student.

“I’m surprised it doesn’t smell like artificial cheese and ass,” you say, looking to Strider with what you hope is an expressionless face. This is the first thing either of you have said since leaving Jade’s.

He snorts at you before turning away and entering what you assume to be the living room from what little you can see of it through the archway. From what you can tell, it doesn’t look as fancy as the entrance, much to your relief.

“What happened to my bag?” you ask, calling after Strider. You remember giving your backpack to the butler, but you’re not sure where it’s gone from there. You wonder for a moment how big the wait staff is, and if they’re always at the house; Jade’s had been noticeably absent from the party, after all.

“The guest bedroom is on the third floor. It's probably up there. Feel free to poke around. I'm gonna watch TV.”

You grumble to yourself, incredibly frustrated by Strider’s utter lack of hospitality, but set off up the stairs, anyway. “You better fucking bet I'll poke around,” you bite back, loud enough for him to hear, running your hand along the wooden banister as you climb the stairs. “I’ll poke around so much the house will think I'm a fucking doctor trying to find any abnormalities on its prostate.”

When you reach the third floor, you notice, with equal parts relief and disgust, that while you can take the Striders from their mess, you can't expect them to keep a place clean.

In the hallway alone, clothes litter the ground, though it’s contained to outside just one door. From suits to jeans to boxers, you wonder if the wait staff (which you’re still assuming exists) contains a maid. As you walk through, going straight to the room with the mess, you gently open the door, not sure what you’ll find behind it.

The first room is pitch black, with the windows covered by blackout shades, but you can still tell that this is Bro's room. It’s fucking giant; it probably takes up the entire right wing of the house. Like the hallway in front of it, you can tell it’s covered in clothes—how many outfits does this assholes need? Among many suits is trash, and even though it’s far away and darker than Hades' asshole on the winter solstice, you’re sure you can see the outline of a Smuppet ass on the Californian king bed.

You haven’t checked, because why the fuck would you, but for a second, you hope that Dirk is still running that weird porn site.

You close the door and keep moving down the hallway, back towards the stairs this time, hand running lazily along the wall. You have to lift it, at one point, to avoid touching a formal portrait of Bro. It’s a semi-creepy thing to see hanging in the hallway; you think it was probably painted right after the move, as Dirk still has his soul patch in it, and as you’ve seen in the tabloids, that was shaved off months ago. He’s grasping a cane, held out to his right side, as he looks over his shoulder, back to the viewer, like an old Renaissance painting. If not for the intimidating suit and shaded face, he may have looked ironically “sexy.” At least, it looks like that's what he was going for.

You shake your head, tear your eyes away, and continue walking. The next room is far better-lit and definitely, without a doubt, Strider’s room. And it’s completely fucking spotless. The only reason you’re even sure this is the right room, the bedroom of your former best friend, is because of the small DJ setup in the corner. Back home, you remember that Dave did always have the cleanest room in the place, with the clutter due mostly to the wires that led from his music station to every fucking corner of the room, including where his bed was. However, here, there’s no audio turn-table switch-knob thing on his nightstand, and you find yourself agitated once again.

You may or may not be looking for thing to piss you off at this point.

You shut the door pretty quickly. You’re not the cleanest guy, yourself, but shit, did you want to see this whole place a fucking wreck, just like how it was at home. It looks like Dirk is the same, so what the fuck happened to Dave?

After peeking into a bathroom that matched the rest of the house in amount of fanciness, you finally find the guest room, marked by the backpack laying neatly on the pristine queen bed. Feeling irritated and maybe even twitchy, you resist the urge to start smoking the stuff Gamzee gave you. What a great friend he is for getting your rather dependent and eternally worked-up ass hooked on the shit. 

You consider “poking around” some more (likely in Strider’s room), but you decide, almost surprisingly rationally, that finding more shit to be irritated about is not the best way to avoid smoking all of your stash. So with a frustrated and sober huff, you head back down the stairs, pass over the second floor, and land back in the foyer.

“Strider?” you call out as you head through the archway he’d disappeared through earlier.

“You’re a shitty doctor if you think ten minutes is all it takes for a thorough exam,” he responds, still a room away. The room you’re in, a very lavish formal living room, is where you imagine Bro has casual business meetings. It’s completely spotless and utterly beautiful, with three couches that surrounded the embellished, carved fireplace, each probably costing more than your entire house.

You keep walking, moving across the dark hardwood floor and coming to another archway; through this one, you can hear an action movie playing.

“Yeah? What the fuck do you know about prostate exams?”

Strider, who you can now see is sprawled out on a leather couch, feet up on the coffee table, wrist-deep in a bow, of popcorn, shrugs. You can see an explosion from the movie reflect in the stupid sunglasses he’s still got on. You look to the plasma screen TV for a second and note that, of course, it too is far larger than absolutely necessary. Former pro-wrestlers are driving/crashing cars on it.

“Just that you’d be shit at them,” Strider says.

You sit down in the arm chair nearest to you and snap, “Why are you still wearing those?”

Strider glances at you, you think. “What?”

“The sunglasses.” You make a weird hand gesture to his face, rotating your wrist in a circle and letting your fingers swing freely.

He shrugs again. “Why do you care?”

You growl. You care for too many fucking reasons, not a single once of which you want to share. You hear tires squealing on the TV. “It makes you look like a douche,” is what you settle on.

Strider says, nonchalantly, “Maybe I _am_ a douche.”

You let out a long, low huff as you try to figure out exactly what to do with that. You mutter under your breath, “You weren’t always.”

“What?” Strider asks, but you’re sure that he heard, even with the movie blaring in the back.

“Why the fuck did you move?” you ask before you can stop yourself, sitting up a little straighter, trying to appear more confident in your question and not at all afraid of the answer.

Strider sits up, too, moving his popcorn bowl to the coffee table before reaching for the remote to turn off the TV, and you suddenly understand the phrase “the silence was deafening.” He lets his elbows rest on his thighs, now hunched over but more intimidating than before. “I guess I’ll finish that later.”

“Rose didn’t move,” is what you say. “You could've stayed with her and your mom. I mean, shit, at least you fucking _like_ them!”

“Shut up, Vantas.”

Even though you can’t see his eyes, you’re still absolutely sure he’s rolling them at you.

“So was it about the fame and money?” you ask. “Were you just sick of your friends? Did you just—“

“Rose got a choice,” he says. “That doesn’t mean I did.”

You’re silent for a minute, adjusting to that new information. “What?”

Strider does nothing for equally as long, likely trying to figure out how much to share. “Mom and Dirk see Rose as an adult who’s got her shit together.

They weren’t going to force her or Kanaya out here,” he says. “But Mom thought this would fix all of my shit with Bro.”

Strider doesn’t give you enough time to think about that.

“I didn’t want you to come here.”

You bristle, at first with shock, and then with hurt and anger; your feelings are jumping all over the negative end of the emotional spectrum. “Yeah, I’d say you’ve made that fucking clear,” you growl out.

“Did Dirk ask you to come?”

“Your mom, actually,” you tell him. “For a whole week, but I’ve got some theories on why it’s only for a night.”

“I didn’t invite you,” he clarifies, needlessly.

You feel your chest get tight, and it’s uncomfortable. You try to steer the conversation. “Where is Dirk, anyway?”

Strider sits back again, sinking into the couch. “I don’t know. He’s never here.”

Even when you were close, you didn’t know much about Strider’s relationship with his brother, and you’re about to ask some questions before he interrupts.

“Why the fuck did you even bother coming?”

“Because I was invited,” is all you tell him, and it’s at least part of the truth. You volunteered would be more accurate to say.

“Did Dirk pay for your tickets?”

You bark out a weird, anxious and frustrated laugh. “Please, Strider, I don’t take handouts. Just because you guys could bathe in hundred dollar bills doesn’t mean I need or want your help.”

“So Kankri paid,” he says, matter-of-fact, leaving no space to argue.

Not that you could’ve argued, anyway. While he spends his days talking the ears off of some poor judges, all you have is a minimum wage, part-time cashiering job at Target. Every day you’re surprised you haven’t been fired yet; you do not have a good way with customers. You know you’re lucky that your brother is so generous, even if said generosity comes with a long and tedious lecture. You’re pretty sure, though, to some degree, that Roxy is the main reason he agreed to send you on his dime—any man would find it hard to refuse her.

“You’d never let him buy you anything, and you’ve never given a shit about manners,” Strider informs you.

“Holy shit, I get it!” you snap. “I shouldn’t have come!”

He nods just once. More than once, you suppose, would’ve made it looked like he cared even a fraction, or like he had any interest in the conversation at hand. Or any interest in you, for that matter.

Flustered, you bark back, in spite of yourself, “Was it really so fucking wrong of me to want to see you?”

You note to yourself, again, how fucking much you hate those dumbass sunglasses. Any expression Strider might be making, any twinge of guilt you hope so desperately he’s feeling, is all hidden behind those stupid mirrored shades.

“Take the fucking glasses off!” you yell.

“No.”

You practically fling yourself up off the armchair, fists now on the coffee table. “Fuck all of your crazy bullshit, Strider! Take your stupid coolguy shades off!”

“Why do you care so much?” he responds, repeating an earlier question, calm as ever. This, you admit, is normal behavior, to some degree—he’s usually cool and collected when you throw tantrums. However, especially now, that doesn’t make the behavior any less frustrating.

“Because I want to see you!” you snap out before you can think better of it, but when you do, you follow up with a strained wail. An awkward moment of silence follows before you yell, “You know what I mean, shitwad!”

You’re not even sure if _you_ know what you mean.

A few more tense seconds pass as you actively try to stop the blood from rushing to your face and pooling in your cheeks. You swear there’s some sort of awkward electricity pumping around you, pushing you to sit back down while simultaneously forbidding you from moving. You’re fidgeting under what you assume to be Strider’s steady gaze, but at some point, you break and look down to the floor. It doesn’t help at all.  
In a movement that takes far too long, in the peripherals of your vision, you see Strider remove his shades. You look up again and meet his familiar red irises, but before you can recover and arrogantly celebrate, you feel yourself crumple—he looks just as entirely apathetic to the situation as he did before.

You huff in disappointment and finally collapse back into the chair. You bite your lip and try to keep thinking straight. That uncomfortable tightness comes back to your chest full force, followed by a knot forming in your throat. You ask weakly, feeling like a pathetic newborn with very little to lose, even though you know you know the answer, “Why don’t you care about me anymore?”

You wish Strider would put his shades back on, right now, immediately, as you watch those red eyes roll. “Come on, Vantas,” he scoffs. “Did you really think we were gonna be best friends forever? That in our old age, we’d wheel ourselves out into the goddamn sunset, away from our decrepit nursing home, oxygen tanks following behind, as our shitty toupees lifted in the wind?”

“It’s less that,” you say, and you can’t tell if you’re on the verge of tears or very destructive anger, “and more that I just didn’t expect you to be such a raging, veiny dick about seeing me.”

Strider gestures with one of his hands as he says, “Here we are.”

You narrow your eyes in what you hope looks like anger, but you’re just hurt.

“If you’ll excuse me,” you say, using the arms on the chair to help you to your feet, “I'll be up in the guestroom, getting so, so fucking high, that when I'm thirty-five-thousand feet up in the air tomorrow, it’ll feel like seventy.”

“You’re excused,” he responds, returning to his earlier position of laying down on the couch, feet on the coffee table, one hand grabbing his popcorn and the other the remote on his way back. He puts his shades back on, turns on the TV, and resumes his movie.


	4. and if I wait

You watch as smoke pours from your face, for the umpteenth time, in utter amazement. As always, the higher you get, the more fascinating it is to watch; you swear you’ll never get used to the way it looks. It’s sort of beautiful to look at something so temporary and fleeting and to know that you did that—you made that happen—as it vanishes into the air.

You take another puff, thanking Jade each and every time, and let the smoke dance in front of your eyes. For half a second you regret not getting her number, but then you notice how soft the comforter on this guest bed is. You decided earlier that, yes, you were absofuckinglutely going to smoke pot on the bed, in hopes of leaving behind some permanent stench of weed that will forever remind Strider of the one weekend he was an inflamed asshole, but it’s not until right now that you feel how amazing it is. You let your empty left hand trail around as you bounce just a little bit. You think about getting under the covers; that would feel real cozy.

For the first time in about a week, you feel awesome. You swear you’re gonna be high for the rest of your life. Fuck your responsibilities and heightened emotions; this is better.  There’s no anxiety or pressure from your friends or Strider’s family, and there’s not as much direct, concentrated anger at him, either. You’re still mad at him, of course, but you can almost forget about it if you just stop thinking about it, as simple as that sounds. If you let your mind wander back home, where Terezi and Gamzee and even Sollux are, you feel better.

Well, until you remember what Terezi and Gamzee are likely doing in your absence. You switch your thoughts back to Sollux, the kid who bought the Striders’ old house after Roxy finally moved out. You hang out with him a lot these days, and while you’d never say it directly to him, you’re actually pretty thankful for his presence. Still, Terezi is who you find yourself being closest to, and for once, you haven’t messed it up with your ill-timed crushes on each other. You’ve started calling yourself the “Spurned by Strider Club” when it’s just the two of you. Still, she seems awfully concentrated on Gamzee recently.

Your mind keeps wandering as you keep smoking, and you start wondering where the hell Bro is. You like to imagine he’s building a robot horse in his secret lab, something he’d occasionally joke about doing, but never had the funds to accomplish. Now, however, you hope he’s living his dreams. You hope he hasn’t changed.

You’re not a big fan of change. You like progress and advancements and upgrades, but change is bullshit. You’ve never even cared about Dirk in the past—you used to fucking hate him, and you probably still would if you weren’t so grateful that he seemed to be largely the same. He was still weird and kind of creepy; Hollywood would have to work a lot harder if they wanted to fix that.

You just don’t like change. You’re not some old fucker growling at his computer, you’re just a guy who misses his best friend.

You shake your head and wrinkle your nose before taking another hit. It’s always easier to smoke with other people around that keep you giggling and full of nonsense, people that won’t let you melt into a puddle of self-created angsty bullshit, as you’re always prone to do.

“Vantas?” you hear Strider call from the other side of the door, somewhere down the hall. You don’t answer. Smoke falls out of your face. You hear him call next, “You better not be in my room, dude.”

You roll your heavy eyes and hear a door, far down the hallway, open. You sit in silence for a few minutes, waiting for Strider to move on. He tries calling out your first name, too, to no avail, before shutting the door. You huff and scoot off the comfortable bed, making your way over to the en suite bathroom, joint still in hand. You haven’t been in there yet, so you’re curious to check it out, but you know you’re mostly doing this to hide.

You shut the door behind you a little too loudly, you think. You hear the footsteps growing louder in the hall. “Shit,” you mutter, as you try not to get caught up in the fanciness of the bathroom. You look to the giant Jacuzzi bathtub, imagining that you could curl up and lay there.

Unfortunately, there’s a bunch of junk sitting in the bottom of the glorious white tub. There are old albums and copies of gaming magazines, as well as not just one but two unopened bottles of apple juice. For emergencies, you guess. Without a Smuppet or picture of Ben Stiller in sight, it looks like all this junk is from the younger Strider.

This is confirmed when a pair of shoes stares back at you. They appear to be the red Converse you begrudgingly bought Strider for his thirteenth birthday. You have no idea what the fuck they’re doing in the guest bathtub, but you’re not thinking about that right now; the fact that Dave has them at all, especially knowing that he’d outgrown them just a few months after getting them, softens you up a bit. At least _they’d_ survived the move.

“Karkat?” Strider calls again, opening up the door to the guest bedroom just a half second before you start absolutely cracking up in the bathroom. They’re shallow giggles, all coming from your chest and not your stomach, but they’re loud nonetheless, especially as they go on. Still staring at the shoes, you feel sort of delighted, which, when paired with the “wacky tabacky,” as Terezi likes to call it, expresses itself in uncontrollable laughter.

You’re usually better about holding it in than this. The first time you ever smoked, Gamzee had gotten that synthetic K2 shit (you later found out that, unlike natural stuff, K2 can actually be quite lethal), because he heard it was stronger, which fucked up him, Dave, and Terezi quite a bit, but you had felt disappointingly sober, not at all interested in engaging in their shenanigans. Since then, you’ve only had a few moments where your equally-as-fucked-up friends felt that you were actually fucked up, as opposed to just abnormally relaxed. For instance, one time you fell down Gamzee’s basement stairs while returning from a snack run, and another, you stole Gamzee’s friend’s phone (you think his name was Tavros?), gone through the camera roll, found a shirtless picture of the poor scrawny kid, put a black and white filter over it before finally showing it to the boy, and whispered, ever so lightly while staring into his eyes, “Now, it's perfect.” You don’t actually remember doing any of this, but it’s been repeated back to you on plenty of occasions.

You open up the door to the bathroom not long after, and, joint wiggling between two fingers, you look to Strider’s re-shaded face and try desperately, valiantly, to stop the giggles and remember why you were so angry just a few moments ago. It takes a moment for the laughter to subside, but when it does, your smile follows. You have a brief memory of annoying Terezi with your flip-flopping.

You both just stare at each other for what feels like forever, but somewhere in the middle of it, you take an elongated hit and exhale the smoke into the large space between you and your former best friend.

“Y’know,” Strider says, fiddling with the handle on the still-open door. “Gamzee has better weed than half the shit out here. I bought from Bro’s new dealer and it was mostly dirt. Jade’s supply is quality enough, but there’s something about getting fucked up in a shitty basement that’s hard to replicate.”

“Must be the people,” you bite. Then, you say, “This is a very thinly veiled attempt to get at my weed.”

“Yeah,” he responds. “So, can I join you?”

He takes a step into the bedroom, closer to you, but you remain still. “You haven’t been able to bare my existence since I landed,” you tell him. “Before then, actually.”

“You haven’t had weed,” he counters.

You roll your eyes and take another hit. “If only I’d known earlier that that was the key to winning your attention. I should’ve expected you to be like runaway dog addicted to human food who comes back to the very smell of pepperoni.”

“I’m a simple guy, Vantas.”

It takes another stiff moment before you thrust out an arm, handing over your joint. Strider registers the offer in a second or two, and as he takes it from you, he seems careful to not allow any contact. You take the last few steps from the bathroom to the bed, where your backpack is still sitting, to begin rolling yourself a new one—you don’t think either you or Strider want to keep passing.

Strider shuffles over, too, and sits on the corner of the bed, on top of the comforter, and as far away from you as he could manage. He coughs, “So, uh, Terezi’s with Gamzee now?”

“Oh, you want to talk about Ohio?” you snap.

Strider shrugs, and you can see his eyebrows disappear under his glasses, signifying that he’s narrowing his eyes, you think. “I guess.”

You nod, letting the quiet hang for another moment or two. You feel more sober than you did just a few minutes ago, and you don’t like it one bit. “After you fucked off across the country, she settled for Gamzee.”

“Not you?” he asks, and you scoff.

“Oh, fucking please. That wasn’t going anywhere,” you say, and there’s silence again as you focus on rolling your new joint before you remember the original question. “He’s not good for her—very clearly worse for her than she is for him. I’m not really sure what to do about it. I haven’t seen either of them much recently, but I know Gamzee can be a dick. Basically, just fuck that guy.”

Strider nods, because all he fucking seems to do is nod. “Troubling.”

“I’m not sure if I was uninvited to movie night, or if it’s just not a thing anymore,” you admit, licking your new joint to seal it shut. You sit down on the bed as well, resting on the corner opposite of Strider. He, of course, to put more distance between you, scoots back until he’s able to lay back on the headboard.

“But you’re still friends with him,” he states, because it’s not really a question.

“I mean, can you really be friends with anyone you don’t ever see?” you ask, very pointedly, as you also made your way back to the headboard. Strider doesn’t attempt to move again.

Silence resumes and you both take a hit of your respective joints. “I don’t think it’s my fault they’re together,” he tells you.

You laugh bitterly at him.

“She was into him before I left,” he says. “That’s why we broke up.”

You take in this information, but you don’t believe it. “So you’re telling me you broke up in high school so that she could get with her asshole stoner juggalo friend, but only two years later, after you moved, which neither of you thought would happen at the time.”

“Vantas, that is precisely what I’m telling you.”

You fidget with you gray Bic lighter. The weed is making it spectacularly easy to not attempt a physical fight with Strider. You make a note to keep considering being high for the rest of your life.

“What about Rose and Kanaya?”

You give this asshole an exasperated look. “Have you really not spoken with your goddamn twin sister?”

He shrugs, “Here and there, but I see your point.”

“You’re such an idiot,” you mutter.

“What, smoking a joint with you doesn’t automatically get you out of trouble?”

“You’re not smoking a joint with me,” you correct. “We’re both smoking joints of our own alongside each other, but we’re not smoking together. Also,” you add, “you’re fuck-deep in trouble. Up to your neck in trouble. Entrenched in trouble. ‘Trouble’ may as well be the name of your—”

“I get the picture, Vantas,” Strider interrupts.

You back off a bit, into the headboard, staring at the door to the bathroom. You think about those shoes in there.

“What the fuck happened to you?” you ask, and it doesn’t sound hostile for once.

Strider takes a hit—this conversation has twice as many long pauses as it does real content. It’s like two middle schoolers performing what they think a slow dance is.

“Vantas,” he says, “I don’t get why this has to be a federal fucking issue. People are allowed to grow up and change and leave shit behind. Not keeping in touch is kinda the natural order of moving.”

Your face twists up. “Where the fuck did you get that idea from? High School Musical 3?”

"I'm just saying—”

“You're fucking lying, is what you're saying,” you cut in. “That's stupid, and even you know it. You don't just fucking abandon your friends because your brother won the goddamn life lottery.”

“Felt like a favor,” he explains. “We would've kept in touch for a month at most, like those penpals elementary schools make you have when you're learning how to write, but who you never talk to again, because what's the fucking point? You tell Billy about your pets, or about how Grandma makes some bombtastic cookies that you gobble down like a fucking dog gobbles down the T-bone from a steak, or how—”

“Just say it’s because of the going away party,” you interrupt, and you almost immediately regret it, but the words come out before you can filter them and then the room is back to complete silence. You look over and see that Strider’s face has turned into a dangerous grimace. You knew that was going to be a sore spot, and you’d wanted him to admit it on his own. Fuck.

You take in a long, cold, smokeless breath as you wait for the reaction. You briefly consider changing the topic, but fuck, you’re more curious than scared, so you let this hang—you need to know. It’s not like this hasn’t been torturing you.

You watch as Strider shakes his head, not in denial but in anger, and for a second, you see his brand new biceps, the ones you were admiring just a little bit in the car earlier, flex. “Fuck you, Vantas.”

The anger returns full force. “Yeah, you fucking wish,” you cut back, unable to prevent the impulse, but like the scared chickenshit you are, you immediately duck off the bed and out of the way, preempting Strider’s lunge towards you. “Come and fucking get it!” you taunt as you stand, and it feels fucking awful because your legs just aren’t real, let alone capable of moving, but you shoot around Strider and to the bedroom door, which you swing open, Strider on your heels. You’re sure he’s more sober than you are, and you know he’s stronger, but you also think you’re faster.

You run without a plan for where you’re going, but only a few steps in and it no longer matters because you’ve tripped and Strider’s grabbed you. He pushes you to the ground, on your back, and he’s on top of you in an instant. He’s a thinner, leaner kind of muscular, for sure, but it sure as hell beats your malnourished stick-figure frame. You can feel your tendons and bone moving under where Strider’s hands have grabbed your arms, and it’s incredibly uncomfortable. It’s in this moment that you realize you must’ve dropped your joint, and he must’ve too, and you really hope it singed the carpet.

“Get the fuck off me, asshole!” you yell, kicking your legs and trying to roll.

His shades are barely hanging on behind his ears, but it doesn’t matter that they’re still there; you can tell this is the most passionate you’ve ever seen his eyes. You remember that you’d often wrestle when you were younger, and while you’d always gotten worked up over it, Strider had been able to suplex you with style and a smirk. This was a bit different.

“Don’t you say another goddamn word,” Strider warns, nearly growling.

Because you’re a big, dumb, masochistic idiot, you can’t help but poke the metaphorical bear despite being in the lowest position of power. You just want him to admit it.

“You know what—”

And then, suddenly, a fist connects with your jaw. In no time, you swing back with the hand Strider had let go of, upper cutting Strider before attempting to push him off. Your move is met with a left hook, which hits your eye, and the pain forces your surrender.

“ASSHOLE!” you bellow, bringing both hands, which Strider has released, up to your new injury. Sensing your defeat, Strider pushes himself off and sits on the ground beside you. “What the fuck?!”

“You did that to yourself, fuckface,” he snaps back, pushing his shades back up and pulling himself together. He looks casual now, legs bent near your torso with his arms in a lazy loop around his knees. Insufferable prick.

“I’m gonna have a black eye, you miserable infant!” you cry out, still holding your very tender face, and the stream of insults continue. You note that your jaw, the first targeted area, hurts as well, but you’re significantly more worried about what Kankri will see when you go back home tomorrow.

“So don’t fucking talk about shit you shouldn’t talk about,” Strider returns, trying and failing to maintain a cool composure. “Seems easy enough.”

You make one more bad decision in the heat of the moment.

“Grow the fuck up!” you scream. “So I gave you head! That doesn't—”

You can’t say you’re surprised when you earn a foot to the ribs that winds you. You groan loudly in pain and roll over onto your other side.

“I’m going back to the guest room,” Strider announces, standing, “to get higher than I’ve ever been before. Talk to me before then and you’ll need a new fucking nose.”

All you can do is groan, but all you want to do is start screaming. As Strider disappears back into the room, you find yourself obsessing over what had happened, the floodgates that you’d tried to keep shut for months, since Strider’s departure, opening for the first time.

It’d happened during the last movie night they’d all been together. Gamzee and Terezi had passed out exactly one and a half movies before you and Dave started talking, reminiscing about all the dumb shit you’d done over the years. It had been really, really gay and sappy, though they were able to forgive themselves for it, as it was mostly weed-induced. Happy stories turned to tears about missing each other, which in turn became sloppy hugs, and then sloppy makeouts that moved into the bathroom, away from their sleeping friends. You mostly remember waking up the next morning, you in the tub and him on the floor, only one of you pantsless, and more importantly, only one of you distressed.

With one last rub at your sensitive eye, you stand up and make your way back into the room, where you plan to obey Strider’s wishes, at least for a little while, and sit in silence.


	5. could I ever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW, ahoy!

You haven’t checked in a mirror yet, having only made it back to your position at the corner of the guest bed, opposite of Strider once again, but you can feel your eye swelling. It’s starting to affect your vision, and you’re starting to panic.

You’ve never been the paranoid type—not while high, at least, but there’s nothing about tonight that’s been standard, either. Still, the idea of Kankri seeing you with a black eye is just terrifying. What are you going to tell him? You can’t tell the truth because then you’d have to explain that you gave your ex-best friend a blowjob in your stoner friend's basement, and shit, would you have to explain how high you'd been? Would you have to tell him how you are _right now_? Would you have to endure a lecture about the effects of smoking, as if you, once a kid that went through the public school system, weren't already aware? Shit, how many lectures would there be? Kankri could talk about illegal drugs, or STDs (again), or the value of friendship, or the danger of basement parties, or first-aid, or some other shit, who knows? He’s as unpredictable as he is insanely condescending, and shit, fuck—

“Calm down,” you hear Strider say, but not in a particularly comforting way. If anything, it comes off as a warning, but it also breaks the seal of silence, so you feel as if you’ve earned permission to speak.

You say without thinking, “Kankri won’t let me come back here.”

Strider responds apathetically, “You’re not coming back, anyway.”

Right. “Oh, I’m sorry,” you snap, looking down at your hands and angrily scrapping a nail against a peeling cuticle. You bite at your hands with semi-regularity, and it shows. “Already forgot what a shitshow this has been. Silly fucking me.”

“You saw a beach and you partied at a mansion,” Strider counters, almost defensively, as he takes a hit from his quickly dying joint and stretches his shoulders. It reminds you to take one, too. “A grand Californian experience,” he says. “You’ll be fine.”

You roll your eyes as you suck smoke into your mouth. “Oh, yes, again, excuse me,” you spit, “I’m being demanding. It seems I also forgot how much I’ve put you out by forcing you to entertain me.”

“Seems like it,” he says. “You really should thank me. It’s only polite.”

With the floodgates open, you’re about to make a comment about how Strider should’ve been thankful for the blowjob, but your fear outweighs your anger, so you find your long-lost self-control and refrain. “Why are you such a fucking asshole?” you sputter out instead.

“You ask a lot of questions for someone who should be shutting the fuck up and leaving be to get high.” He looks very calm for someone who was just participating in a physical fight.

You bark back, “You could've gone back to your own goddamn room, dickweed, but you didn't, so really, whose fucking fault is that?”

“Don't read into it,” he says, shrugging it off and rolling his shoulders back into the headboard. It looks like, with all his fidgeting, he can’t get comfortable. “The weed is here.”

“You could’ve grabbed your joint and left,” you say, even though you don’t really want him to leave. As fed up with him as you are, you know you’re still craving (and almost enjoying), being the center of his attention. This is because you’re a masochist.

Strider takes a moment to process this. “You’re right,” he declares, which surprises you. “Maybe I’ll go.”

But neither of you move. You want to encourage him, tell him that he should, just to see if he’ll do it, but you know you’re not worth that much, and that if given the push, he’ll gladly walk out. There’s more silence.

Strider smirks before putting the joint to his lips. “You don’t really want me to leave.”

You’re ready to begin Round 2 of The Hallway Brawl, you think. “I want you to get the fuck over yourself,” you say, and you’re being really honest.

He shrugs, still smirking.

“How many times do I have to ask you what happened?” you ask, even though you think you know the answer. You just want it to be different.

He takes a long hit, in no hurry to answer a question that, yes, you’ve asked, in one way or another, several times. “I’ve told you,” he says. “You’re just not satisfied with the answer, and that’s not my problem, Vantas.”

“You don’t think you owe me a satisfying answer?” you demand, turning to look at Strider without any sense of secrecy. He doesn’t return this, but his smirk is still comfortably hanging on his face. “We were best friends for years, and what, fuck, that’s nothing to you?”

“What the fuck do you want it to be?” he asks. “What do you want it to mean?”

You break your gaze and huff, looking away. You don’t have an answer that doesn’t sound incredibly gay. You’ve spent the majority of your life beside this buffoonish asshole—that’s why you care so much. It’s like the guy you knew and tolerated had just fucking vanished, or, worse, turned into this dickhead, and it sucked. You just want your friend back.

Any maybe to occasionally blow him?

Fuck.

You’ve known that that’s exactly what happened to Dave. Everything he claimed about “the natural order of moving,” losing touch and all that, was probably still true to some degree, but you definitely fucked things up and sped the process along by doing what you did. Blowing your best friend, a guy who can’t be gay, a rule either set by him or his brother, was a very, very bad thing to do. You shouldn’t be surprised that it put space between you. You fucked that up.

Despite the fact that there’s an incredibly healthy amount of space on the bed between you and Strider, especially because you’ve each made your homes on the very edge of the bed, you feel claustrophobic now. You take a deep breath, breathe it out slowly, almost in a hiss, counting all the while, before you muster up the courage to mutter back, “I just don’t want you to fucking hate me.”

You see no movement from Strider in the corner of your eye, but you don’t glance over to check, either.

Silence once again finds its place over the two of you. You sigh, not in annoyance, but in defeat. There’s nothing you can do to fix this, and you know that you care, but you act like you don’t. It’s been a shitty trip, he’s a shitty guy, and you don’t care, you don’t. It’s better, you think, to let the memories of your best friend, all the nice stuff, to just be memories and nothing more. You can’t force Strider to be like he used to. It’s more frustration than it’s worth, you know, to pursue a friendship in this mess you’ve created.

As you take the bitterest hit of your joint yet, the one you think might be the last, you begin to wonder how Rose feels. Sure, you and Dave had been best friends, but siblinghood, and more so, twinhood, is so much closer. She hasn’t been out to California at all, and it doesn’t sound like Strider has been keeping contact very well. Maybe she hasn’t, either. Does she know what he’s like? Does she know about Jade and John, or anyone else? Did they have a fight or some sort of blow out, or was it “the natural order?”

Is it your fault? Did you fuck up more than just your own relationship with Dave?

“Karkat,” you hear, quietly. You jump a bit at the noise, but you don’t look over, despite the fact that you know, for once, Strider is looking at you.

“I don’t hate you,” he says.

You don’t move, or breathe, or think, and then you laugh. It’s a really nasty, mean, bitter laugh, and it’s like that despite any pleasant surprise you may have felt. “How sweet,” you say, like an idiot who can’t take an olive branch. “Hard to say I feel the same.”

“You do,” Strider insists. “You don’t hate me.”

That’s enough to make you look over, a scowl heavy on your face. “You don’t know jackshit, asswipe.”

“You don’t hate me,” he repeats, and this time he sounds cocky. His stupid fucking shades are stupid. “Which is why you don’t want me to hate you, in case you forgot.”

“If you’re under that impression because I came to California,” you say, “I only started hating you at baggage claim.”

This is a lie. The truth is, you started resenting Strider a few months ago when the kid couldn’t be fucking bothered to answer his texts or emails or phone calls about the upcoming trip (or anything else). You had to get Kankri to call Dirk, which had been as stupid as it was ego-shattering. So, to be fair, you’d had a negative disposition towards him long before you landed, but Strider being a predictably giant, loose asshole about the whole thing would’ve done it, anyway. After all, fucking John was the first person to really welcome you to California, and you only knew him from a tabloid cover.

“I don’t—” Dave starts.

Your eyes are locked on the bathroom door when you ask, “Have you fucked John?”

Hey, there’s that silence again. You fucking idiot.

"Oh, hey, cool,” Strider responds flatly. “Guess that’s my fucking cue.”

This time, he does move to leave, and it only makes you more curious. You watch as he goes right through the door, and without any hesitation, you follow, but not before putting your joint out and leaving it on the nightstand.

“What the fuck?” Strider snaps over his shoulder as the pair of you move right past where The Hallway Brawl had taken place. Your eye twitches, so as to remind you.

“I figured, after you left, that you’d do more shit with guys,” you tell him. It’s a lie, but it’ll get under his skin, and you just can’t help yourself. “You never did anything with Terezi, and you’re kind of gay, and there was the whole Fieri thing—”

"A shared hatred of the architect of Flavortown is not indicative of butt stuff,” he tells you, now stopped outside of his bedroom door. “No, I haven’t fucked John,” Strider says, monotone, and you think you’re going to have to explain two black eyes to Kankri. “Dumb fucking logic,” he tells you. “If that logic had to go through the American education system, it wouldn't do well on its SATs, and it'd be forced to go to community college, where it would remain undeclared until forced into the business program, the major people who don’t know what the fuck they’re doing but have no artistic ability go into, hoping they’ll be able to get a job with an associate’s and no experience.”

This takes some time to process. An extended metaphor? After storming off? After being accused of fucking a dude?

“There’s nothing wrong with community college or studying business,” is what you tell him.

"There is when it's the only school that'll take you, and only because you pay tax dollars. And there is if you did it as a default, and not out of passion,” he responds, casually, as if the last time you implied that maybe some gay stuff went down (okay, you’d done more than imply), a physical altercation had not, in fact, ensued.

"Did the logic at least get a good GPA?" you ask.

“Vantas, the logic failed every class,” he scoffs. “Its GPA was like, a point-oh-six-nine.”

You laugh as if that’s nearing clever, or at least not the dumbest, least funny thing you’ve ever heard, and then you stop. What the fuck is going on?

Strider opens the door and steps inside his near spotless room, and you follow.  He makes no attempt to stop you, which you take as a good sign, but you’re still lost. Just like the first time you peeked in, you eye up the DJ equipment in the corner, and then at the nightstand, where a turntable should be, but instead, there’s a box of Kleenex. At this point, you’re glad to see equipment at all, even if it’s not as much as he’d had at home.

"Do you still make music?” you ask.

A second passes, because everything is a pregnant pause with this dipshit. “Yeah, I still make music.”

“Is it still shit, or have you gotten better?”

“My music is fantastic.”

“Do you still rap?”

“Karkat,” he says, sounding cocky but distracted, “I have the sickest rhymes.”

“Not good,” you tell him.

He shakes his head. “You’ve never understood art. My music library is like a beautiful museum, and you should respect it.”

You roll your eyes. “Yeah, because you’re so familiar with fine art.”

Strider sits down on the corner of his bed, but unsure if you’re meant to or not, you continue standing, arms folded over your chest, and keep looking around. One of the first things you see is the godawful “Do You Follow Kasich This Close?” license plate holder above his bed, on the wall, along with some posters, one of them Midnight Crew

“What… what about you?” Strider asks, and he almost sounds nervous. The fact that he isn’t looking at you doesn’t help.

“… Do I still make music?” you ask.

“No, did you … experiment with dudes?”

You bark out a laugh at the question, which is completely ridiculous.

“You asked first,” he defends.

You move farther into the room as you try to think of how to respond. You feel arrogant when you tell him, “I was fucking guys before we even got our diplomas.”

There aren’t any shitty katanas on the wall, which is nice, you suppose, and there aren’t any dead things in jars, which is a welcome change. “Oh, yeah,” Strider says, and it’s almost a murmur. You can’t tell if he’s embarrassed that he forgot, or if he just feels awkward that you did that in the first place. It’s likely the latter.

“Of course you don’t remember,” you say, bitter. “You forbade me from talking about it.”

“Thinking about your best friend fucking is gross.”

You bristle just a little bit at the “best friend” part, but you can't help but bother Strider more. “Fucking _guys_ , you mean. You never had any problem if I was with girls.”

“Tuh-may-to, tuh-mah-to,” he mutters, laying on his own bed in the same way he had in the guest room. “You never dated any of them like a proper lady, anyway.”

You laugh a little more and then make your way to the bed, falling into it and finding a comfortable position, and also, for once, a comfortable silence. Still, you know this comfort is temporary, and you don’t allow yourself to believe otherwise.

“I like girls,” Strider tells you, eyes locked on his feet.

You roll your eyes. “Yeah, fuckface, so do I. What decade are you living in? You don’t have to choose.”

“I’ve fucked girls since I got here,” he announces, and this time, you think he spares you a glance to gauge your reaction.

You shift yourself on top of the bed, but without any clear goal of how you want to end up resting. You’re not really sure what to do with this particular piece of information. You’d figured this was the case since Strider brought a girl up to Jade’s room, and John had portrayed him as kind of a player, but still, you’re not sure what to make of this.

Strider looks back to his feet, but he tells you, “Jade was the first, but she doesn’t know that.”

“Why are you sharing shit _now_?” You feel a little bewildered.

“I have no idea. Drugs? Shit, man, I always talk too much.”

“Well, you really haven’t—”

“I’ve thought about it,” he mutters, voice incredibly quiet

You turn this over in your head a dozen times, and then a dozen times more. You’re not sure it means what you think it means, but it could mean myriad things.

You only have a half-baked plan in mind when you ask, “I'm never being invited back again, am I?”

Strider’s voice picks up and he seems grateful for the change in topic, “Not on my life, Vantas. Not unless you’re looking for a nice Californian burial plot.”

“Well, then,” you say, feeling incredibly emboldened despite Strider’s return to his new and hard demeanor, “we don’t have much to lose, do we?”

It’s with this that you move towards Strider. You’re rather quick and nimble about it, especially for someone who can get so easily flustered. But this is a thing you’re good at, and you know that, so you take advantage. In just a second, you’re right next to him, your torso over his with your hands on either side of his ribcage, and just as suddenly, sure lips meet still ones and you’re fully prepared for a blow to the temple. You haven’t worked out yet exactly what this move reflects about you (do you like him as more than a friend, if you can even consider him that anymore?), but you’ve gone for it anyway, and fuck, does it feel good. Between the adrenaline and the high you’re still riding out, that electricity you’ve only ever read about in romance novels doesn’t feel so fictional anymore.

The temple shot never comes, but Strider doesn’t reciprocate, either. You pull back, resisting temptation and moving both of your hands back to your sides. You’re staring into blank shades and your adrenaline has been replaced with anxiety as you prepare for refusal, or an insult, or _fuck_ , something, but there’s just silence again. Silence for what must be five seconds but feels like minutes, until—

“Do that again,” Strider demands.

“This is a bad idea,” you tell him, wondering if any of this would be happening if you were sober.

“Wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t,” he tells you, and that’s enough for you, but you can’t help but wonder if you’d demand a larger conversation if you were sober.

When he grabs your arm, you remember that you’re not sober, so fuck it.

You’re more aggressive with your movements this time as you throw yourself back on top of him, straddling the leg he has closest to you, loving how warm Strider feels under where your hands are now on his chest, but still almost begging him to become disgusted and throw you off. Your other hand goes behind him and twists itself up at the base of Strider’s neck, where his hair is too long, but most importantly, your lips are back on his. After just a brief flash of hesitation, he engages in the kiss and even lightly rests a hand on your hip. Your heart is pounding now as you take this as encouragement and slip your tongue into his mouth, just for a second touching his canines, before biting at his lower lip. He tastes like weed and popcorn, which is as exactly as pleasant as it is surprising, but somehow, it’s still kind of hot. Dave, you think, is actually just kind of hot. You’ve always known he was attractive, but, fuck, somehow all the fighting really amplified it.

You’re probably a bad person. Is this hatefucking? Should that bother you? Are you going to allow this very, very bad and high-induced decision to go any further? Is Strider?

You feel a hand at your chest, so you pull back. Upon opening your eyes, you remember that one of them is still swelling up, and now you’re making out with the fuckface who punched you. You think Kankri would define this as “loose morals” or “poor decision making.”

“What’s wrong?” you ask.

He doesn’t answer, and his face, still covered with his dumb shades, betrays nothing. If anything, he might be gnawing at the inside of his lip, but it’s not easy to tell. Eventually, you relent, letting go of him and pulling yourself away completely. You’re surprised you got as far as you did, especially without any new injuries, before Strider backed out, but you know when to stop pushing. You lay on your back on the other side of the bed, putting some distance between the two of you, and in your periphery, you see Strider moving. You assume he’s readying himself to leave again, but you don’t check. You’re trying to fake apathy, and while hurt isn’t the best word to describe how you’re feeling, you haven’t felt this shitty in a while.

Given that, you’re rather surprised when you find yourself pinned down, arms over your head, in a position very reminiscent of the one you’d been in maybe an hour or so ago, with significantly different context.

Strider is breathing harder than you expect when he tells you, “I didn’t say stop.”

Your own breath catches in your throat, and despite how very, very close Strider is, and how very, very turned on right now, you can’t help but let paranoia win out and remind him, “You’re fucked up right now.” You push your wrists against his hands, testing his grip, but he doesn’t let up. Yes, this is exactly like the Hallway Brawl, and that shouldn’t have the effect on you that it does. Almost to add to the aggressive atmosphere, Strider, with his new biceps, is significantly stronger than you and relentless in his efforts to keep you from moving away. “We probably shouldn't—”

“Yeah,” he interrupts, “we probably shouldn't.”

And with that, Strider ducks down and starts biting and sucking at your neck. You silently curse everyone who’s ever claimed that hickeys are for high school—that shit leaves you breathless. It makes you arch your back, getting closer, feeling the warmth of his chest on yours, and you let out the smallest whimper, and then Strider, the asshat, has moved away again. You frown deeply at him, scowling, unsatisfied.

“That was fucking adorable,” he tells you, and your eyes are narrowed in a different way now. “Shit, I forgot how…”

He’s called you cute before, sure, back in Ohio. Remarks like that weren’t all that uncommon, through rarely was it meant as a compliment. Usually it was the inciting incident to a fight, but fighting had been different there, too.

You think you see Strider’s face go red before he buries his face back into your neck, preventing you from rebutting the claim. Your voice catches in your throat when Strider finds a particularly sensitive spot lower on your neck, and your complaint manifests itself in a low moan. You notice, with your hands on his back, that this noise sends the slightest of shivers through Strider’s body.

In an instant, there’s a hand with long, delicate fingers at your hips, pulling up at the fabric of your shirt. You lift your hips in order to let him continue pushing it, loving the feeling of his fingers tracing their way up your sides. It tickles a little bit, but before you can laugh, the pressure gets harder, needier, when he reaches your ribs.

You ask him, voice unsteady, “How far are you planning on going?”

He mutters into your neck his only answer: “Dunno.”

It’s not sufficient or helpful, but it’s not unsatisfying, either. He has no imminent plans to stop, and moreover, he’s the one escalating things, and you plan to let him continue to direct things. However, as much as you don’t want to push it, you have another question, and you’re so fucking bad at just keeping your mouth shut. “Why are you—”

“What, you want me to stop?” he growls into your ear as he gives another yank on your shirt. You raise up as much as you can to allow him to rip it off of you, and he throws it to the ground, which sends a surprised jolt through your body and right to your crotch as cold air hits your skin. This feeling only becomes stronger when he immediately goes back to holding your wrists in place.

“No, I just—”

“Then shut the fuck up.”

He goes back down, this time for your lips, likely in an effort to make sure you stay quiet. You eagerly return the kiss, for once not minding being silenced and bossed around. You pull more at his grip on you until finally, _finally_ , he lets go and allows you to trail your hands down to his waist, where the bottom of his shirt has gathered. You pull at the hem, much like he’d done to you, and in no time, he’s sat back again, removing his own shirt.

Muscles have never been a particularly big turn-on for you, but fuck, you can appreciate Strider’s. They’re not huge and bulky, but they sure are well-defined, his arms in particular. You’re an out-of-shape piece of shit, yourself (skinny-fat, a doctor once told you), and you can’t help but feel some jealously mixed with your arousal. You realize, as you gaze, that the lights are still on, meaning Strider can see your body as well as you can see his. You flush, immediately insecure, but it’s not long until his body is covering yours once again.

Now both shirtless, you find yourself savoring the feeling of skin-on-skin contact, and you fight the desire to move for Strider’s pants. Yours are getting a bit tight, but you don’t want to go too fast and scare him. However, it ends up not mattering, because as soon as you’ve finished thinking this, Strider is working on the button of your jeans. It’s exciting, but it’s over soon.

Strider pulls back entirely, a confused look on his face, like he’s not quite sure how he got into this predicament, or at the least, he’s not sure how to continue. You roll your eyes and push at his chest. “Roll over,” you demand, knowing you don’t have the strength to overpower him like you’d like to. Sometimes, an expert is required.

It takes a moment of hesitation, but he nods, pulling himself the rest of the way off you and laying where he was before, if not a little closer. You mutter something about him being an amateur, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

Once you’ve regained control, now straddling his hips, you ask him, “Do you want me to keep going?”

He groans, “Don’t say it like that.” He looks incredibly embarrassed, with his cheeks red and eyebrows furrowed. Despite still having his shades on, his palms goes to his eyes. You make a mental note to get those off of him eventually.

You’re enjoying his familiar awkwardness. “Like what?” you taunt. “Use your words, Strider. Someone paid for you to go school, once upon a time.” You wiggle your hips over his, just to tease him more, and oh, yes—

He lets out an even longer groan, interrupting your discovery. “Like,” he trails off. “Like I _want_ it.”

“But you do,” you say, assuring yourself more than him. “That’s the whole point, dumbfuck.”

He concedes with a hiss, “I guess.”

You smile and put a hand at the center of Strider’s naked chest, mostly looking for an excuse to touch his torso. "You’ve got to say it."

"No."

"How will I know it's okay?"

"It's okay," he growls, hands still rubbing his face. As shy as he’s being, it’s clear to you, still straddling him (and loving seeing him like this), that he isn’t exactly hating what’s going on.

"What’s okay?" you whisper, persistent.

He throws his arms to his sides dramatically. "You're making me softer by the second, Vantas."

You chuckle humorlessly, knowing for a fact that this is a lie, and lean up a bit to nip at Strider's neck, enjoying every second. With the hand you’ve put on his chest, you reach between the two of you and find the little circle of metal you’re looking for, then deftly undo it, then do the same to his zipper, but very, very slowly, half to tease him and half to give him time to think it over. 

"You're the fucking worst."

That sounds like approval enough to you, so you quickly reach for the bulge hidden away in Strider's boxers, and—

"Wow."

“Shut the _fuck_ up,” he growls at you, apparently not caring that he’s being offered a compliment.

You listen. You may have your hand down your former best friend’s pants (over, really, you suppose), but you don’t think that gives you authority to comment on anything you find there, even if said commentary would’ve been very nice. Even if you’ve seen it before.

He makes a low whining noise in reaction to the stillness, but unfortunately for him, you once again find a question eating at you that you need answered before you move any more. “Are we just doing this because we’re high?”

“Yeah,” he says shortly, rolling his hips a little, urging you to continue. You believe what he says, even though you’re feeling pretty sober right now.

Still, you’re sure this is for the best. “Okay,” you say, nodding, convincing yourself of this.

You move both of your hands to the waistband of his jeans and pull at them, hoping to get them out of the way. Strider bucks up his hips and helps as much as he can, looking to expedite the process.

“Wait,” you interrupt again, before the job is done, you shitgoblin, “I know you haven’t indicated just how far this is going yet, but do you have lube? We’re not doing shit with some dumbass substitute. I won’t—”

He interrupts, “I know of all people I shouldn’t tell anyone to shut up, but if you don’t stop talking right fucking now—”

“Do you have lube?”

A tense pause.

“Yeah. Nightstand.”

You roll your eyes. “Clichéd motherfucker.” Still, you take a moment to tell him, with all of Kankri’s lectures on consent ringing in the back of your head like the world’s worst but most effective alarm system, “We don’t have to do that if you don’t want to.”

Strider nods, then mutters, “ _Please_ do something less awkward.”

Without further hesitation, you close the gap between your bodies, making your chests flush against each other as your mouths move once again. As nice as the making out is, you take advantage of the permission you’ve been granted and reach back down between you to his hips. You struggle to keep the slow pace you’d like to have, but you want to get to the damn point already. You let your hand take one quick pass at Strider’s erection before finishing the task of removing his pants. Strider’s breath hitches in reaction to the movement, but neither of you break the kiss.

Your hand finds itself pulling Dave fucking Strider’s dick out, and for a second you’re shocked into stillness—this is not how you imagined your night going­—but you fall back into the moment. Strider moans, and the grin on your face is all ego.

You murmur, “Since I’ve already blown you, would you consider letting me do that again?”

“Yeah,” he tells you, very quick to respond, “I could consider that.”

Despite feeling incredibly impatient, you let the handjob continue for a few moments more as your lips continue working on his, tongues coming into play every once in a while, but you enjoy teasing Strider too much to stop. His face is flushed, he’s growing harder by the second (which, in turn, is making you uncomfortably hard in the jeans you’re still wearing), and fuck, do you love that you’ve made him like this.

The hungry kiss continues even as you attempt to move this party to the edge of the bed. You touch his bony hips and toned legs in the right places, grabbing enough to make it clear that you intend to turn ninety degrees. You slowly begin moving down and off Strider’s body, pressing small kisses every few inches, and you hope that that comes off as sexy and not sappy. You know the biggest mistake you could make here is implying that there’s something more going on than an inebriated fuck, but honestly, it’s not like that urge is even there for you. Not after what a fucking dickhead Strider has been. It was significantly harder, if memory serves, to keep emotion out the first time.

You’re kneeling on the floor now, between Strider’s legs. His back is still flush on the bed and he’s completely naked. Your hand continues to carefully, slowly, agonizingly stroke up and down his length, thumbing just slightly at what some health class taught you was the frenulum. His dick twitches in response, and for a second your chest swells before anxiety once again kills it.  You’ve done this before. You’ve done this _a lot_ before. You’ve done this with _Strider_ before. There’s no reason to be nervous—you know you’re good. But there’s still something preventing you from enjoying this. The first time you were with Dave hadn’t been like the other times you’d sucked guys off. You hadn’t known what it was then, and you certainly don’t know what it is now. But it’s different.

When Strider bucks a little into your hand, you remember where you are. You let your face hover over him for a few moments, stilling your hand and just rubbing the tip, causing Strider to moan out in a mix of pleasure and frustration. You smirk, even maybe laugh, because when you finally do run your tongue up his cock, he jumps. You take just a second to be annoyed that he’s not looking at you at all, too busy studying the ceiling, you guess, but you let it slide; you’re not sure how eye contact would go over, anyway. You keep your hand moving at the base of his shaft as you capture the tip between your lips, earning a hand desperately grabbing at your hair and oh, yes, all anxiety is (momentarily) out the fucking door, you love this.

“Fuck,” you hear him breathe out, and you hum in response, because you’ve had some good blowjobs in your life, okay? You know how this shit works; you know that it feels good, and you already know that Dave likes it, since you’ve done it before. Still, he punctuates his approval by bucking into your mouth.

You continue moving up and down, steadily gaining speed now. He’s clearly enjoying every second of this, as evidenced by the noises escaping his mouth and his ever-tightening grip, and as much as you’re enjoying it, too, you can’t help but be distracted by the nagging voice in the back of your head. You’ve had sex with a lot of people in the last handful of years, but it’s never been like this. Even the last time you blew Strider wasn’t like this—you’d still liked Dave then, after all. In some ways, this feels less intense than times you’d been with people you’d more recently enjoyed the presence of, but fuck, in other ways, this is making you far hornier. The animosity from earlier in the day isn’t lost; it’s still hanging around, energizing the air in way you’re unfamiliar with. With little trust between the two of you, there’s something about this intimate act that feels all the more intimate.

You’re suddenly brought back to attention via a loud moan from Strider. You remove your mouth, substituting a slow hand. “Don’t you fucking dare cum yet, assmunch,” you growl in response, genuinely annoyed. You know he’s not as experienced as you are, but Jesus Christ, it hasn’t even been that long. You _are_ a bit flattered, though, you suppose.

He groans a loud complaint in response, releasing his grip on your hair, but it does get him to sit up in annoyance at the enthusiastic blowjob turning into a frustratingly gentle handjob. “Don’t flatter yourself,” he bites, but it’s weak.

You keep teasing the sweet spot where shaft meets head, if only to watch Strider’s face now that you can see it as he tries to remain stoic.

“Do you want it to be over that quickly?” you ask, and you’re teasing, but you’re also testing the waters.

It seems like he understands. Between this and the question about lube, it’s clear what you’re implying. “I guess that depends,” he tells you.

“I’m assuming you have a preference,” you say, a little too aggressively. Personally, you prefer to top, though it’s always been tricky to find a partner that didn’t immediately assume otherwise. You have a feeling where Dave “No Homo” Strider falls on the issue.

“Well,” he says, right hand wringing at the back of his neck, face still flush but perhaps growing redder.

Your eyes narrow, both curious and daring Strider to finish the thought.

“Look,” he explains, “you’ve caught me at a moment where I’m too high to care, and just curious enough to consider trying, and…”

Suddenly, your whole body feels full of the realization of exactly what Strider imagines when he “thinks about _it_.” If there’s anything more to his statement, you miss it. You make an over-eager grab at the nearby nightstand, too short at this angle to really see into it. Still, rather quickly, you find what you’re looking for; short, cylindrical, and with a small space cut out for your thumb. You look to the bottle and then to Strider.

He still appears rather uncomfortable, which you’re sympathetic to. Your first time wasn’t exactly the stuff of fantasies. Your over-excited (and perhaps over-aged) partner hadn’t been all that worried about your comfort. There was lube, sure, but not a lot of fragility.

“How little can you make this suck?” he asks you.

The pause isn’t reassuring, but you try to make up for it when you talk. “It’s going to feel incredibly bizarre until it feels good.”

He considers this as he looks to you for any more comfort. While you don’t want him to worry about this, it would be untruthful to claim that you aren’t enjoying his return to vulnerability and awkwardness. In this moment, he feels more like Dave and less like Strider.

Still, after a moment, he gives a timid nod before flopping back down on the bed unceremoniously. “I guess we’re doing this, then.”

You can’t fucking help yourself. “We’re making this happen.”

Where you expect a groan, you receive a thumbs up thrust into the air. You know that’s as close to verbal consent as you’re going to get.

“One thing first,” you say.

This _is_ met with a groan. “Fucking what?”

For the first time, you’re the one that feels timid. “Take off your shades.”

He lifts himself up onto his elbows to look at you. “Are you really in a place to be making demands?”

“Are you?” you snap, nudging his the inside of his leg with your hand, so as to remind him of his position.

He mulls this over. He must think this is a fair clarification, as the glasses are discarded beside him. Not willing to let you have a full victory, his eyes remain shut.

You roll your own eyes but settle. Both of your hands are off of Strider as they work on opening the bottle and applying a generous amount of lube to your left pointer finger, being careful to not get any on the floor. When you’re satisfied (and Strider seems properly impatient), you put you dry hand on top of Strider’s leg, pushing it open a little more. Then you move the same hand back to his erection, hoping to mask this new and possibly uncomfortable feeling with something familiar.

“Relax,” you say, as gently as you can manage, as you try to push past a very, very tight ring. You persist as Strider attempts to do as he was told, and suddenly, you’re a knuckle in, and then two.

“Not the biggest fan,” he tells you, discomfort apparent in his voice.

You try to be patient as you pause movement on both of your hands. “Look, we can stop whenever you want, but—”

“I’m not a quitter, Vantas.”

You grumble at him under your breath, but you start moving your finger back and forth again until he seems to be used to it. Then, you add a second finger. When you hear his sharp gasp, you realize you probably should’ve warned him beforehand, but you only care momentarily. Despite the noise, he seems serious about this—there’s no other protest.

When he seems ready for something bigger, you realize your jeans are still on, you fucking idiot, and you’re not sure what to do about it. You dry hand is still performing its very important task of continuing work on Strider’s erection, and your other hand isn’t even close to being a viable candidate.

He must notice your conundrum, likely because you’ve slowed down a bit, so he asks, “What’s wrong.”

You’re a little embarrassed as you mutter, “My pants are still on.”

There’s a silence.

He sits up and you remove both of your hands in response, careful not to touch anything with your left hand. This is the first time you’ve really seen his eyes since he came upstairs, and you’re not prepared for it. He looks so much… like Dave, and it feels bizarre. Your breath catches in your throat and you’re back in a friend’s basement bathroom in Ohio.

“Stand up,” he tells you, breaking your little trance.

With a raised eyebrow, you oblige, awkwardly getting to your feet from your knees using only your right hand and Strider’s left thigh as support.

“Gotta do everything myself around here,” he says, and it must be a joke, seeing as he’s done fuckall. He finishes the job he started earlier, unzipping and sliding down your pants and boxers, revealing your own erection.

You’re not normally self-conscious around whoever you’re fucking, but nothing with this dickhead is standard. He’s just sort of staring at you, and you can’t tell if he’s unsure of what to do again, or if he’s completely disgusted and wants to stop. Before you can really panic, though, he’s dropped down to the bed, back on his back yet again. You scowl at him, but you’re also rather sure you didn’t want him touching you, anyway.

You finish kicking your pants off and reach back down. You’re still standing, but you return to your previous job(s). Strider has an arm over his face, obscuring all expression. You huff at this, but let him get away with it, knowing not to push him, especially with where this is heading.

Soon enough, you find yourself asking, “Are you ready?”

“You’re probably a better judge of that than I am,” he remarks.

“Just a ‘yes’ or ‘no,’” you prompt.

It takes a moment, but you get a weak “yeah” in response. Nodding, you reach down for the lube again and prepare yourself, and when you’re mollified, you put one hand at Strider’s hip and hook the other underneath his left knee, pulling it up to allow yourself easier access. Your angle is still a bit weird since Strider’s a little low, but you make it work. You remove your hand from Strider’s leg to line yourself up, and then—

“ _Fuuuuuuuuuuck_ ,” the other man groans out, and it takes all that’s in you to not say something similar but in a much, much more satisfied way. Still, tightness all around you and the desire to move very, very strong, you will yourself still and wait.

From what you can tell from his half-hidden face, he’s gnawing on his check again. His mouth is open, but his brain hasn’t figured out what he wants to say. A moment (a very, very long one, in your opinion) passes before he instructs you, “Slow.”

You take this instruction seriously, moving tortuously gently, but still trying in earnest to get just a little deeper with every thrust. You’re convinced that if you can just find his prostrate, you can make this about ten times more enjoyable.

Another slow thrust, and another, then another, before he whimpers— _whimpers_ —out, body growing more and more relaxed by the second, “Okay, faster.”

Still not wanting to do anything too jarring, you increase your speed little by little, allowing yourself to feel so, so good, but still trying to make sure that Dave is feeling (or will feel) the same. You remove one hand from his hip, the still slightly-lubed hand, and put it back on his dick, thinking that if you’re not going to hit the right spot, at least this will feel good, too. What little you can see of his face seems to tell you that this is, in fact, a great idea, but ultimately, you have little to worry about. Not too much longer and Dave’s mouth pops open in shock, and a sound that sends a delightful shiver through you escapes his lips.

“What is _that_?” he demands. “Do that again.”

And so you do that again, and again, and again, stroking Dave in the same rhythm, and you’re rewarded with more noises, each better than the last. At a certain volume, he must realize that he’s being loud, and his arm shifts from his eyes (still closed very tightly), to his mouth, muffling himself. You grunt in disapproval and reach up with your free hand, grabbing his wrist and forcing it away.

You get a surprised gasp in response, as well as a lifted chin, which you misread as him still trying to hide. You realize your assumption was incorrect when you feel his back arch under you and his erection throb in your hand, and he’s making beautiful noises, and suddenly, Dave’s cum is all over his chest and barely-there abs. You begin moving faster than you have been, feeling hotter and harder than ever before as you take in erotic scene.

“Not in me,” Dave breathes out, eyes still closed, voice still breathy.

You oblige and pull out, one hand still on Dave’s wrist and other working on finishing yourself, which perhaps isn’t quite as nice, but the orgasm that tears through your body and the noises that come from your mouth betray the fact that you’ve still enjoyed yourself very, very much.

Totally out of breath, you let the moment hang before worrying about cleaning the two of you up. For once, Dave’s face looks calm and maybe even blissful, though he does pull at his arm a bit weakly, prompting you to let go. You’re forced to stand, since you can’t use your other, newly-dirtied hand to steady yourself, instead. You slowly reach over to the Kleenexes on the nightstand and lazily wipe your hands off, and then Dave’s chest. Not knowing where the fuck a wastebin may be, you settle for kinda grossly putting the used tissue back on the nightstand. It’s Future-You’s problem now.

You then lay next to Dave, who’s also breathing heavily, eyes still shut, but not so tight as they once were. You resist the desire to put a hand on Dave’s bare chest and notice that you’re both technically laying the wrong way, but it doesn’t seem to matter; the bed is huge. Still a bit delirious from orgasm, you let yourself come back down slowly, savoring every second. The moment is wildly intimate, yet still a little awkward; you feel closer to Dave than you ever have, but also incredibly unsure of where you stand with him now. Above all, you feel so, so tired.

“Good?” you ask between large breaths, making sure to get that in before you pass out.

The other man nods, arm back over his face. If any conflict is written there, you’re too exhausted to pursue it.

You let your own eyes close, feeling how soft the comforter is underneath you, and how comfortable you are next to Dave, and how much more comfortable you’d be if you’d just get closer. You give into your instincts, finding and holding Dave’s arm, as you think about how little sleep you’ve gotten since early this morning when you’d left for California. You hadn’t realized how tired you are until right now, because up until this second, you’ve not felt so relaxed.

It’s no surprise, then, that you were in a deep, peaceful sleep by the time Strider got around to moving you.


	6. forgive myself?

You wake up to a pillow hitting the back of your head, hard.

“What the fuck?!” you instinctively garble back, despite not being awake in the slightest, face still buried in the pillow you’d been sleeping on. You may not be keenly aware of your surroundings, but you’re aware of the throbbing pain in your head, and it’s beginning to wake you.

“You’re a heavy sleeper, dude!” someone with a voice that’s not immediately familiar says.

“Then let me fucking sleep, asshat,” you grumble, speaking mostly into the sheets as you stuff your face into them, wiggling under the pillow and pulling the comforter up around your body, creating a dark and warm cocoon.

Another hard smack with the pillow comes, followed by, “You’ve got a plane to catch! Dave sent me to get you!”

It takes a moment, but this information, which doesn’t make sense at first, forces you to raises your head and look at exactly where you are and who’s hitting you repeatedly. The boy, whose identity is still yet to be determined, has a goofy ass grin on his face, likely pleased at his triumph. You remember that you’re in California visiting Dave, but that’s about all you really understand right now.

“Dave?” you mutter aloud, looking to the walls of the guest room and trying to make some connections.

“No, fuckface, I’m John!”

You look back at him, and okay, yes, that’s John, Dave’s friend, and you’re in Dave’s guest room, but you don’t think you fell asleep here. You definitely remember being in this room last night, and you remember smoking a joint or two, and you remember doing that with Dave, and oh-ho-ho, fuck, shit, you fucked Strider last night.

Memories start flooding back to you in a way that makes you blush and rebury your head. Shit, you fucked Strider. Shit. That’s worse than a blowjob, you goddamn shitstain. You don’t deserve to have friends.

Another hit with the pillow.

“Will you fucking stop that?!” you demand, whipping your head up. “I’m awake, you human excuse for a trash bag!”

“Then sit the fuck up so I can leave you to get ready!” John suggests, laughing all the while. “I have to know you’re not gonna fall back asleep as soon as I’m gone. Jade does that all the time and it’s a pain in the ass!”

You begrudgingly oblige, glaring as you prop yourself up onto your ass and hands. As the cool air hits your chest, you realize you’re buck-ass-naked, and so does John. You try to keep your face stoic.

“Put on some clothes, weirdo,” John says, still laughing. “Is that a hickey?”

You right hand immediately flies up to your neck and your eyes bulge a bit, silently begging John to not ask any further questions and _just fucking leave_.

“Dave bring you back a girl last night?” he asks, still laughing, eyebrows wiggling now, but he seems to be genuine, as if the chance that maybe the hickey was from his friend wasn’t even in the realm of possibility, which to John, you guess it isn’t.

“Where the fuck is Strider, anyway?” you snap, trying to change the subject.

John shrugs. “I dunno. All he told me is that he wouldn’t be back in time to get you to the airport, so I figured I’d help a dude out, and—”

Well, that stings a bit. “Just go already!” you demand.

“Okay, okay, but you asked!” he relents, still smirking. “But be down in a few minutes. I was gonna toast us up some Pop-Tarts. Strawberry or cinnamon?”

“Strawberry,” you answer after a moment, like withholding the answer from John will do you any good.

He gives both a nod and a verbal acknowledgement before leaving the room, shutting the door behind him and leaving you to your thoughts.

Fuck, you fucked Strider last night. And now he’s not here. He’s so not here, in fact, that John is. If you thought a blowjob messed up your friendship, this is sure to destroy it.

“Fuck,” you mutter to yourself. “Good fucking job, Vantas.”

You slowly pull yourself up from the bed, specific memories coming back slowly. The two of you had gotten sort of high in the guest room (but not nearly as high as you were both likely pretending; not high enough to excuse fucking as an unintentional “it just sort of happened” kind of thing, in your opinion), but you’d followed Strider into his room after asking if he’d ever fucked John, which was enough to get him walking, but not enough to get him to tell you to fuck off.

You figure Strider must’ve carried you back to the guest bedroom this morning. You blush at that a little, thoughts lost in a mix of how that’s kind of sweet, but also, you know you would’ve been very, very naked. But, it strikes you that he would’ve moved you with the idea of leaving in mind; there would’ve been no reason to put him in another bed other than to make sure it looked “normal” to John when he swung by to pick you up. You’re mad again.

“Fucking Strider and his goddamn insecurities,” you grumble, moving to grab clothes from your backpack, which had been left on the floor, the large middle pocket wide open from your hunt for your weed the night prior. “Does a fucking impressive impression of a middle school girl, that’s for sure.” You find clean boxers and pants, put them on, and stop before you get your shirt. “A goddamn shame he can’t go to the eighth grade formal because none of the boys asked him out and he’s too embarrassed to wear the dress his mother bought for him.”

Eventually, you shut up long enough to finish getting ready the rest of the way, though not without a running internal monologue about how it’s Strider’s loss, trying to keep the nagging voice about what a terrible friend you are away.

You notice that while you’d been returned to the guest room, the asshole hadn’t returned the clothes you’d been wearing. Groaning, you leave the room, backpack in hand, and head down the hallway to Strider’s room, passing the portrait of Dirk and the spot of the Hallway Brawl—your injured eye gives a little twitch in response. You slow down when he get nearer to the door, and surprisingly nervous, you give the doorknob a tentative turn.

It’s clear rather immediately to you that Strider hadn’t returned to his room after moving you. Not only is your shirt on one side of the bed and your pants on the other, as well as the outfit Strider’d been wearing, but the bottle of lube is still on the floor, and a gross, crumpled Kleenex is still on the nightstand. Eyeing up Strider’s discarded shirt, which was under your own, you figure that Strider had likely put on something new before leaving. This gives you a weird mental image of a fully-clothed Strider carrying a small, naked you, bridal style, down the hallway.

You grimace.

As you gather your clothes up from the ground, tucking them under your arm, you make the conscious decision to leave all the other evidence from last night out. Though you’re convinced you’re the worst friend a guy could have (as you often are), you’re not sure you want to let Strider off the hook so easily, either. This is an incident you already know you’ll be torturing yourself over for months, and there’s no reason that Strider should get the benefit of pretending it never happened.

And so, rather confident that this is the death of your civil relationship with Strider, anyway, you leave the scene intact for the other man to clean up later.

…

“So the hickeys I get,” John says as soon as you step into the kitchen, “but what’s up with the black eye?”

You grumble as you claim the plate of strawberry Pop-Tarts that’s laying on the counter for you, “None of your fucking business, Guy Fieri.”

John frowns at you, still playful, you think, as he brings his hand up to run it through his hair, almost as if to assure himself that he doesn’t have Fieri’s nightmarish frosted tips. “Don’t call me that,” he whines. “But seriously, what happened?”

You stare blankly back at John, nostrils flaring just a bit. You teeter between telling him the truth, just pissed enough at Strider to rat him out, but you also really, really don’t want to give John the satisfaction of letting him know. You settle with shoving as much of one of your Pop-Tarts into your mouth as he can.

“Fuck off,” you garble out, spitting crumbs onto the counter.

 John grimaces in disgust, staring at the mess and then at you. “Gross, dude.”

You allow yourself to finish chewing, but still say with a full mouth, “Don’t they have a full fucking cleaning staff or something, anyway?

 John’s frown deepens. “I mean, technically, yeah, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to just make a big gross mess for them.”

“They’re being paid to clean,” you snap, really only frustrated by the fact that yes, the Striders do indeed have some sort of wait staff.

“Yeah, but they’re still people, asshole,” John says, turning around to get a new paper towel from the sink. “Like, in school, just because there were janitors didn’t mean you just left your milk cartons and apple juice boxes on the ground.”

You grumble and snatch the paper towel from John, opting to clean the mess yourself, knowing you look like a jackass.

As John watches you clean, he remarks with a smile, “As for the black eye, I’m just gonna pretend you’re really kinky.”

“John, is this line of questioning coming because you’re jealous of my black eye and want one, yourself?” you ask. “If so, that can be arranged.”

John chuckles but lets the topic die. You throw your paper towel at him, anyway.

…

After a mostly quiet drive to the airport in John’s own convertible (rich assholes), you get your plane ticket, at which point John, who’s been very insistent about staying at your side, can’t go any further. You give a little annoyed wave at him as the two of you step out of line, which the man returns with an equally little smile.

“Karkat,” John says, waiting until the exact moment you turn your back to leave for security. Cinematic.

You grit your teeth and roll your eyes, but spin back and returned your attention. “What?” you can’t help but snap.

“I don’t know what happened last night,” John says, looking pointedly at your swollen eye, “but you should text Dave before your flight takes off. He probably wants to apologize.”

You laugh bitterly. “Oh, I’m sorry!” you say loudly, earning a glance or two from people walking nearby. “Silly me! I misinterpreted him leaving before I woke up this morning as him not wanting to see me, let alone speak to me! How ridiculous of me; I should’ve known he wanted to talk!”

John takes a step forward, likely trying to encourage you to keep your voice down. “You know… He’s, like, really awkward, and he probably didn’t know how to handle whatever happened with you guys.”

“Jesus Christ, John!” you yell, throwing your hands up into the air, the right one gripping your new plane ticket tightly enough to crumple the middle. “I can’t help the fact that he needs someone to hold his hands and walk him through life, avoiding all the insufferable and awkward parts! I’m not his babysitter, and you shouldn’t be, either,”

John puts his own hands up in surrender. “Okay, well, I told him to text you, too, so as long as one of you breaks…” he trails off.

“Why the fuck do you even care, John?” you ask. There are definitely a few sets of eyes on you now, including those of children, and at least one teenager has obviously just stopped to watch, but you’re not paying attention to any of them. “Do you get off on conflict resolution? Are you trying to build up a resume for when you apply to be the guidance counsellor at Sunshine and Fucking Disney Movies Elementary?”

He laughs humorlessly and shrugs. “Nope, Dave was just super mopey when he called this morning. He’s really annoying when he’s mopey.”

Your swollen eye twitches a bit, if possible. _Strider_ was mopey? Goddamn, was sleeping with you really the worst, most offensive thing that could’ve happened to him? For fuck’s sake, you’d given him opportunity upon opportunity to back out, which he clearly didn’t want to do, so if Strider is going to be mopey, it’s his own damn fault.

“What’s your last name?” you demand. You know you knew it from a tabloid at some point, but in your anger, you can’t recall much.

“Uh…” John responds, confused. “Egbert?”

“Well listen up, Egbert,” you snap, taking a step forward. “I need to get on a plane that’s going to take me five hours away from this hellhole. Strider made it clear to me from the second I arrived that I was of no interest to him, and therefore, he and his goddamn mopiness are none of my concern. I’m gonna get as far away as I can from that asshole, and I suggest you do the same. Do not. Be. A babysitter.”

“Okay, Karkat,” John sighs, shaking his head a little. “But if you don’t text him soon, I think you know both of you’re gonna be too weird to talk again.”

“Good,” you bark. “Goodbye, Egbert.”

“See ya,” John responds, smiling sadly, like a friendly asshole.

“You won’t!” you insist, turning your back and walking on, pissed off at Egbert’s smugness. “What a dickhead,” you grumble to yourself.

As you make your way to security, you fish into your pocket, hands tense, and grab your phone. You send an angry text to the first person you can think to bitch to. You know Terezi is likely sleeping, despite it being midday in Ohio, but as another former member of the shitfest that was movie night, she’ll be sure to understand you frustrations.

SO I SPEND THE WEEKEND IN CALIFORNIA, WHERE THE SUN IS CONSTANTLY ANGRY AT EVERYONE FOR BEING BLOWHARD PIECES OF SHIT, AND ALL I GOT WAS A GODDAMN BLACK EYE.  


You shove your phone back and trade it for your wallet, getting your ID ready to go through security.

…

You make it through security, on and off the tram, and to your terminal with little fanfare. As you sit down at the gate, you once again remove your phone from your pocket. You think long and hard about whether or not to text Strider—the biggest thing stopping you, perhaps, is the fact that John told you that you should. This reason is followed by the fact that you’d _fucked your ex-best friend who found it horrific enough to run away from his own damn house_.

You’re not even sure what to say to Strider. You’re just self-loathing enough, in general, to blame yourself for the whole thing and apologize for making everything awful, but you’re also still pissed off enough (and hurt enough, maybe) to tear Strider a new one so large it forms its own gravitational pull massive enough to destroy him and his fragile ego.

Before you have the chance to decide whether or not you’ll take a large bite of the metaphorical bullet, your phone lights up with a message from another blonde-haired nuisance.

The last thing that I want is to sound emotionally needy, or compromised in any other way, so know that I'm not asking about this because I give anything that could resemble either a shit or a fuck.  


You stare at the screen. You and Rose are friends because you run in the same group, and you knew she was going to ask you about this weekend, but you’ve never really talked one-on-one before. You’re surprised you even have each other’s numbers.

ASKING ABOUT WHAT?  


Did my brother say anything about me this weekend?  


WHICH BROTHER?   


Oh, excuse me, I should be more descriptive: the one you went across the country to see; the one I actually consider to be my brother.  


OH, THAT BROTHER.  


Yes, that brother. So?  


I SUPPOSE YOU CAME UP ONCE OR TWICE.  


Would you mind so generously sharing the context of the conversation I may have come up in once or twice?  


You do sort of mind sharing, but not because you think Rose shouldn’t know. The first time she came up was because you brought her up as a weapon to use against her slightly older twin, and the other was a lazy attempt of Strider’s behalf to find out how she was doing. Neither were particularly noteworthy, and you didn’t want to tell her that.

You decide to respond with YOU’RE SOUNDING EMOTIONALLY NEEDY.  


__

It takes longer than the last few messages for her to respond, but before she does, the gate agents call to begin boarding. Too busy with getting your ticket ready, handing it over, getting on the plane, and putting your bags into the overhead compartment (chewing the inside of your lip the whole time, flickering between anger and anxiety), you don’t even notice that you have a few new texts until you’re sat down.

DO3S TH3 BRU1S3 4T L34ST M4K3 YOU LOOK L1K3 4 COOLK1D TOO? was first, and not as important as the other message.

Then let me rephrase: Did he say anything that may have hinted as to why he’s had a sudden change of heart regarding visiting Ohio? He sent me a screenshot of a receipt for a plane ticket with his name on it, dated around Thanksgiving, and another of a pink Smuppet that better have only been included for his sick love of irony and not because it will be coming with him in the form of a gift.  


You feel your brow knit together (and then go up, then back down) in astonishment and pure, unadulterated anger. You must’ve made some noise that makes the young woman standing in the aisle, who had been contemplating sitting next to you, opt to keep moving further down the plane.

Before you get time to fully process this information, Rose sends two follow-up texts.

Have you seen him today? I think he may have sent the second photo from Dirk’s office, which I assume would make sense, since Dirk has control of all the new Strider money (and, of course, his disgustingly amply puppets).  


What on earth happened this weekend?  


You’re not even really sure anymore. Your phone buzzes once again, and then once more, and then again, and again, this time lighting up with a name he hadn’t seen in months: “GARBAGE LORD OF THE TRASH FLIES.”

next time dont waste your bros money  


ill come to ohio  


last night didnt suck btw  


bros 5 lyf  


It is at this point that a flight attendant reminds you that your phone needs to be in airplane mode. Your face is bewildered when you look at her, but she keeps smiling and waiting for you to comply.

And so you do, giving yourself five hours to freak the fuck out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look, after two years, it's over. Why/how did six chapters take two years? Your guess is as good as mine, my dude.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you liked it. It was originally only supposed to clock in at four or so chapters, as its basis was the song "Diplomat's Son" by Vampire Weekend (lol it was a songfic the whoooole tiiiiiime), but I kept having more and more ideas, and now it barely resembles what it was supposed to.
> 
> I'm currently writing a sequel to this, but my plan is to not post any part of it until it's fully done.
> 
> Thanks for hanging in there.


End file.
